


pick it all up, pick it all up (and start again)

by pixies



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, OT5, Terminal Illnesses, honestly so much fluff and schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-28
Updated: 2013-02-28
Packaged: 2018-01-08 13:17:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 34,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1133110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixies/pseuds/pixies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life is at a turning point for Niall- she's graduating, getting ready to start university, and she feels like she's got the world in the palm of her hand- and the best part is that she gets to begin this new stage of her life with her Zayn and their three best mates by her side. </p><p>Life throws her a curveball, though, and instead of spending the summer with her boyfriend and her friends, she ends up on a red-eye flight back to Ireland. It's hard enough being away from Zayn and the others, but when coupled with the reason for her leaving in the first place, the trip starts to drain her of her energy. She returns completely drained and waiting for the other shoe to drop. </p><p>When it does, Zayn, along with their friends, are there to help her pick up the pieces of her now shattered world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> written for my 2012-2013 big bang, originally posted 02-28-13 on my lj!
> 
> disclaimer: i made this up no harm was meant insert standard disclaimer here

“Haz!” Niall calls, running across the large room full of their classmates to fling herself into his arms. “Can you believe we’re graduating? S’about damn time, honestly.”

“Hey, Ni,” Harry responds, hugging her, his arms tight around her waist. “Seems a bit surreal, doesn’t it?”

He sets Niall back on the ground gently, smiling and patting the top of her head when he sees how her graduation gown is very nearly swallowing her whole (she got the smallest size they had, okay, damn things). She glares at him, knowing he’s about to say something about her size, and raises an eyebrow as a dare. He throws his head back as he laughs, and pulls her back in with an arm around her shoulders; she begrudgingly hugs him back with an arm around his middle, tilting her head to rest on his chest.

“Aw, there’s a picture!” a familiar voice crows from a few feet away, and roll their eyes when Louis emerges from the crowd of soon-to-be grads, Liam and Zayn walking dutifully behind her. They’re dressed nicely, Louis in a form-fitting dress that she probably wore to distract Harry while he walks across the stage, Liam and Zayn in dress pants and button ups. 

Louis stops in front of them and holds her camera up (of fucking course she brought her camera, pain in the ass is gonna be sticking the damn thing in their faces all day), commanding them to “Stay just like that. Good. Now smile!” before dropping it into her bag and throwing herself at Harry and Niall.

“Hi,” she says, hugging them both at the same time. “Our babies! I can’t believe you’re all grown up.”

“Oh, stop, Lou,” Niall says, rolling her eyes but smiling fondly at her. “You guys are only one year older than us, jesus.”

“You only graduate high school once,” Zayn chimes in, his tone just as patronizing as Louis’, and steps over to where Louis has joined them all in an impromptu group hug (after grabbing Liam’s wrist and tugging him in). He grabs Niall’s wrist lightly and pulls her to him. “Hey, babe.”

“Hiya,” she says, smiling up at him and looping her arms loosely around his waist as she presses up on her toes to meet his kiss. “Seen any of my family yet?”

“Not yet,” he answers her, and pulls his other hand from behind his back to reveal her graduation cap. “I do have this, though.”

“Oh, shit!” Niall says, taking it from him. “Thank you! Where did I leave it?”

“In my car,” Zayn says. “Louis almost sat on it. Grabbed it just before she did, I don’t think it would have survived-”

“Hey!” Louis says, popping up next to them. “Don’t be rude, Malik. Now step aside, let me help dear Nialler here with her cap.”

“I can do it just fine myself-” Niall starts and laughs when Louis shushes her, plucking the cap from her hands and setting it atop her head, pulling bobby pins from god knows where so she can secure them in her hair.

“I dunno how we’re gonna manage to get Harry’s on. His head’s big enough already without all that curly hair,” Louis mutters as she steps back to give Niall a quick once-over. “There we go! Aw, look at you.”

Niall’s eye-roll is interrupted when she’s picked up from behind and swung around.

“Nialler!” she recognizes her brother’s voice and turns to throw her arms around his neck as he sets her down.

“Greg!” she says, burying her face against his shoulder and hugging him tight. “Oh my god, hi, did you guys just get here? How was the flight?”

“Take a breath, Ni,” he laughs, extracting himself from Niall’s grip. “Someone wants to see you.”

He steps aside then, revealing her mum standing a few steps behind him, holding a bouquet of flowers.

“Niall,” her mum says softly, opening her arms. She looks skinnier than Niall remembers her being the last time she saw her, and more tired. The lines around her eyes are more exaggerated now, but Niall’s just so happy to see her that she doesn’t dwell on it for long, instead throwing herself into her mum’s arms and hugging her tight. She hasn’t seen her in nearly six months, her last visit to Ireland having been at the beginning of her Christmas holiday. “It’s so good to see you, sweetheart.”

“You too, mum,” she says, face buried in her mum’s neck. “You too.”

The ceremony is long, but it goes well. Liam, Louis, and Zayn’s cheers can be heard over everyone else’s when Niall walks across stage to get her diploma. Harry does some stupid cat call that makes her laugh outright, and she vows to do something equally as loud and obnoxious when his name is called.

(She does, yelling “Take it off!” at the top of her lungs when Harry steps across the stage, waiting until most of the cheering has subsided to do so, and laughs when Harry just winks and mocks unzipping the front of his gown. Their mums must be so proud.)

They celebrate back at Harry’s mum’s house, where they have a joint-graduation-party-slash-reunion-for-all-of-their-families. Harry and Niall pose for all of the pictures their families and friends coerce out of them, and Harry finally takes Louis’ camera from her hands and removes the batteries when he realizes she’s probably taken at least four hundred pictures since the beginning of the ceremony.

“You don’t need pictures of my nostrils, Lou. Or my crotch,” Harry says, and Louis opens her mouth to protest, but then, realizing he’s caught her, just glares at him instead.

Anne and Jay (who have been best friends for even longer than Louis and Harry) whip up an amazing spread, and Zayn eventually has to drag Niall out of the kitchen when she keeps trying to sneak bites as they’re preparing all of the dishes under the guise of “helping”.

“C’mon,” Zayn says, fingers tangled loosely with Niall’s as he leads them out into the Cox’s backyard. He sits down on the top step of the back porch and pats the space next to him, waiting for Niall to sit down next to him. He wraps his arm around her shoulders and pulls her into his side then, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Proud of you, Ni.”

“Thanks, babe,” she says, but he hears the question in her voice.

“Got you something,” he responds, pulling out a long velvet box from his pocket.

Niall raises an eyebrow up at him but takes the box when he hands it to her, gasping when she opens it to reveal a silver watch, encrusted with black stones around its large face. She flips it over and finds an engraving on the back of the watch face, and is a little embarrassed when she tears up as she reads it.

“To my Nialler,” Zayn reads for her. “Til the end of time.”

Niall laughs and knocks her shoulder into his. “Sap,” she says, but she’s smiling at him, her eyes still wet, and she reaches up to cup his jaw and pull him down so she can kiss him. “Thank you.”

They go back inside and Niall allows Harry to pull her up from her spot on the couch next to her mum to dance with him, winking at Zayn when Harry dips her far enough that she can tilt her head back and grin at him upside down. Niall passes Harry off to his mum so that she can grab Zayn’s hand and pull him up; he comes begrudgingly, never having been one for dancing, but Niall’s gotten used to his two left feet and dances expertly around him.

“Can I cut in?” Niall’s mum says, popping up next to Zayn and Niall.

“Absolutely!” Zayn says, and walks away before either of them can change their minds.

“I’m really proud of you, Ni,” Maura speaks, reaching up to tuck a lock of hair behind Niall’s ear. “You’re such a beautiful young woman. I can’t believe you’re all grown up.”

“Never growing up, you know that” Niall responds, winking at her. “I’m glad you could come, Ma. I know things are awkward between you and dad-“

“Oh honey, nothing could have made me miss this- not even your father,” Maura says, laughing, and they both turn to where Niall’s dad is sitting in one of the chairs that Anne had dragged in for extra seating, vehemently denying his new girlfriend’s pleas for a dance.

“Mum, are you okay?” Niall asks then. “You seem… dunno, you seem sad.”

Her mum’s eyes water then and she places her hands on either side of Niall’s face so that she can lean in and kiss her on the forehead. “I’m okay, honey. Enjoy your night, yeah?”

Niall hesitantly agrees, not wanting to force her to talk about anything she’s not ready to talk about yet.

They spend the night eating and drinking and laughing with their friends and family. Niall keeps a watchful eye on her mum throughout the night, not even realizing she’s doing it until Zayn interlaces his fingers with hers and squeezes.

“Alright?” He asks, and Niall realizes she’s been worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, her brow furrowed as she watches her Mum talk to Anne and Jay.

“Yeah,” she responds, shaking her head and turning her focus back to the game Louis has just started. “Yeah, sorry.”

Zayn just squeezes her hand again, leaning in to press a soft kiss to her cheek.

\---

At the end of the night, Niall drives her mum and brother to their hotel with promises to see them first thing in the morning, and then drives over to Zayn’s place. She lets herself in, kicking off her shoes and pulling her hair up in a knot on the top of her head. 

Zayn’s music is blaring from his guest room, the smell of paint and turpentine thick in the air the closer she gets; she pauses in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe, and watches Zayn as he paints. He’s facing her (keeping his canvas shielded from view, he never lets anyone see his stuff until he’s finished), but he’s so zoned out that it takes him a few minutes to realize she’s there.

“Hey,” he says when he finally looks up and sees her standing in the doorway. He reaches over and turns off his stereo. “Y’alright?”

“Yeah,” Niall says softly. “Tired, though. Long day. Gonna head to bed, you coming?”

Niall makes her way down the hall to Zayn’s room when he nods at her and tells her he’ll be there in a moment; she pulls her dress over her head, dropping it on the floor, and grabs a hoodie that’s hanging on the back of Zayn’s desk chair before sliding into his bed, slipping under the covers and rolling onto her side.

Zayn slides in behind her a few minutes later, curling around her from behind, his arm a welcome tightness around her middle. Niall can smell his paint on him, stronger than usual, invading her senses and so, so familiar, and she rests her hands on his forearm and squeezes, leaning back further into his body.

“So was today everything you’d ever imagined it to be?” Zayn speaks, nosing at the back of her neck. He slips a hand under the hem of her hoodie to rub his thumb across her hipbone.

Niall laughs and rolls her eyes (which Zayn can’t see but he knows she does), before shifting and turning over so she’s facing Zayn. She hooks a leg over his and reaches in between them to play with the strings of the hoodie she’s wearing. “Shut up, Z,” she says, smiling softly at him. “But yeah. It was good.”

“What’s bugging you, babe?” he asks quietly, curling a hand around her hip and squeezing gently.

Niall sighs and pushes closer, tucking her head under Zayn’s chin and pressing her nose into his collarbone, wrapping her arms around his waist and squeezing tight. “I’m worried about mum,” she answers after a moment. “Did she seem different to you?”

“She seemed a bit more quiet than usual,” Zayn murmurs in agreement. “Whatever it is, I’m sure she’ll talk to you about it.”

“Yeah,” Niall says quietly after a moment. “I’m sure you’re right.”

She leans her head back to look up at Zayn, and then, with a quick smirk (so quick Zayn doesn’t even catch it), she pushes at his shoulder and flips them until he’s flat on his back with her straddling his hips.

(She’s never been great with serious conversations, doesn’t like being sad or worrying, so instead of doing either she just. Doesn’t.)

“You’ve gotten better at that,” Zayn laughs. He drops his hands to rest at her hips, smoothing down the tops of her bare thighs. 

(The first time Niall had tried to surprise him like this had ended up with them both on the floor beside the bed in a tangle of limbs. Niall had laughed so hard she cried.)

“Right?” she smiles, dropping down until she’s resting her weight on her forearms on either side of Zayn’s head, hemming him in. “Thanks for today, Z.”

“I love you,” Zayn responds simply, cupping the back of her neck to pull her back down to him so he can kiss her. He pulls her hair from its elastic as he does so, threading his fingers through the blonde strands. “My little graduate.”

Niall rolls her eyes at his words and reaches in between them to tweak Zayn’s nipple, laughing when he yelps. She shrieks when he then flips them over so she’s flat on her back, Zayn’s skinny hips cradled against her own, resting between her legs, his body flush on top of hers.

“Well look at you,” she says, breathless, lifting her head off of the pillow so she can land a quick kiss to Zayn’s lips and then reaching up to push her fingers through his dark hair. “Love you too, you know.”

“I know,” Zayn speaks, and smiles before ducking down to slant his mouth over hers.

Niall sighs into it, reaching up to loop her arms around Zayn’s shoulders and pull him close. She scratches her nails through the hairs on the back of his neck and hooks her ankle around the back of Zayn’s leg, rocking up into him and opening her mouth under his. Zayn breaks away and presses his face into the crook of Niall’s neck when she rolls her hips up again, slipping a hand under the worn hem of the sweatshirt she’s wearing to smooth a hand across her stomach, holding her in place as he leans back up.

“Z-“ Niall starts, but Zayn cuts her off with a quick kiss before shifting back and shimmying down the length of her body. He pushes the hem of the sweatshirt up, kissing the soft skin of Niall’s stomach as it’s exposed, and Niall jumps when he bites lightly at the spot just under her belly button.

He can smell her, thick and heady, can tell that she’s tuned up and ready to go already; he kisses her hipbone again before pressing his forehead to the curve of her hip, closing his eyes and breathing her in.

“Let me, Ni, can I—

“Are you kidding,” Niall breathes out, and the hand that was at the back of his head is now tangled in his fringe, pulling him up so she can kiss him again. “Fucking yes,” and Zayn laughs, but there’s something in the way that she pleads with him, bites at his bottom lip and sucks on his tongue when he slips it into her mouth that makes him want to screw with her a bit, string her out and work her up.

“Okay, c’mere,” Zayn says, gripping Niall’s hips and pulling her farther down the mattress. He settles back in between her legs, bracing himself on his forearms and kissing her soundly once more before dropping his head to mouth at her neck, biting at the skin there. Niall squirms against him and he decides to take his time when she pushes at his head impatiently, canting her hips back up against his.

By the time he kisses his way back down her body, slipping a hand up under the sweatshirt to palm at her breast and rubbing his thumb across her nipple, Niall is writhing beneath him, legs parted and hands scrambling at the elastic of her undies. She’s completely soaked through, he can tell with a quick glance, and he wants to taste but he waits.

“Budge over real quick,” she says, starting to push the material down her hips.

Zayn stops her with his hands on her wrists, stilling her motion. “Ah, ah,” he says, and he smirks before dropping his head and pressing a kiss against her through underwear, quick but firm.

Niall shudders and pushes her hips up, seeking more, and Zayn ducks his head and does it again. It’s nothing but a quick kiss, mouth closed, but Niall whimpers, and when Zayn looks up he sees her eyes have closed, her bottom lip tucked firmly between her teeth.

“I wonder-“Zayn starts, letting his breath ghost hot and wet over her. “Do you think you could come like this?” Niall whimpers again in response, blinking her eyes open to stare down at him where he’s propped himself up in between her legs. He lets go of her wrists to bring his hands down to the inside of her thighs and part her legs more, and he can’t help but run a quick finger up the length of her folds, transfixed as he watches her eyes flutter shut again. “Ni?”

“Yes,” Niall answers, nodding quickly. She raises a hand to her face to brush her hair out of her eyes. Her breath is coming quickly now, and her voice is shaky. “Yeah, yes, I-“

She’s cut off when Zayn ducks his head again, pressing his lips against her once more; this time, though, he doesn’t pull away immediately, instead keeping his mouth pressed against her and reveling in the way she squirms under his touch, under the firm pressure of his lips on her.

He dips his head lower and parts his lips, licking up and over her through the material of her underwear, and Niall gasps at the sensation of the damp material and his tongue on her. She barely has a moment to recover before Zayn closes his lips around her clit and sucks lightly, and the way that Niall shudders, her hand tangling in his hair again, knotting in his fringe and holding him closer even as she pushes at his shoulder with her other hand, causes Zayn to chuckle.

“Jesus,” Niall hisses at the vibrations that run up her core. “Oh my god, can you just-“

Zayn parts his lips and rubs his tongue decisively over her clit then, stroking a hand up from the inside of Niall’s thigh and across her belly, fingers splayed across her navel. He shifts lower on the mattress, turning his face into Niall’s thigh and nudging at her until she lifts her leg to hook it over his shoulder. Her hand comes up to grasp his other hand, still spread out on her stomach, and laces her fingers with his, squeezing tightly when he returns his attention back to her, his tongue teasing over her clit once more.

Niall’s entire body shakes under Zayn’s ministrations, and when Zayn slips his free hand in between them to press lightly at her entrance with two fingers at the same time that he closes his lips around her clit again, sucking hard and letting his teeth drag across the sensitive nub,  
Niall shudders and comes suddenly, choking on her muttered “oh my god, oh my god” as she gasps and shakes through her orgasm. Zayn keeps his mouth on her through it, mouthing at her through the aftershocks, and only pulls back when she pushes at the top of his head, breath coming short and fast as she tries to catch up.

She pulls him up to her so she can kiss him, and Zayn feels her fingers shake where they rest on the sides of his face. Her cheeks are flushed red, her pupils blown wide, and when she drops her head back onto the pillow, looking up at him and muttering a breathless “c’mon, then,” with a smirk and a quick nod of her head, Zayn groans and tucks his face into the crook of her neck as he starts to rock against her, rutting against the curve of her hip in shallow little thrusts.

Niall drops her hands to grip at his hips, fingers slipping into the elastic of his boxers and tugging them down just enough so that she can get her hand around him. Zayn groans when she wraps her fingers around his length, and he pushes up into her grip, rocking over and over into her fist. 

It doesn’t take long for him to get there, too, and he comes with a low groan, face still buried in her neck, when Niall thumbs over the head of his cock, his hips stuttering in their movement as he comes wet and hot over Niall’s fingers and hip.

“Well,” she says a moment later, when Zayn props himself back up on an elbow, head in his hand as he looks at her. She wipes her hand, sticky with his come, across the front of her panties before pushing them down her legs and throwing them off the bed. When she turns back, Zayn is still looking at her expectantly, and she laughs. “I, um- I don’t actually have anything to say? I mean. Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Zayn says, leaning down and pressing a quick kiss to Niall’s mouth.

“So I guess this means I have to keep you,” Niall muses when Zayn pulls back, winking at him. She reaches up and runs her thumb over his bottom lip. “Can’t give that up, now can I?”

Zayn snorts out a laugh, rolling his eyes. He doesn’t respond, just shifts to lie on his back, wrapping his arms around Niall’s shoulders when she follows, curling into him with her head on his chest.

“Love you, Z,” she mumbles after a moment, and Zayn can tell that she’s already almost asleep.

“Yeah, babe,” he responds, reaching out and turning the lamp off. “Love you, too.”

\-----

When Niall wakes the next morning, Zayn is still sound asleep, arm slung over her waist and face buried in his pillow.

“How do you even breathe like that,” she mutters under her breath, but Zayn is dead to the world as she lifts up his arm and slides out of the bed.

She showers and gets dressed quickly and quietly, only stopping to drop a kiss to the back of Zayn’s head on the way out the door. He wakes briefly, catching her wrist in his fingers and tugging her back to the bed, shifting onto his back so he can pull her down and kiss her properly.

“Ew, rank morning breath,” she chides, wrinkling her nose at him. Zayn just cups the back of her neck and holds her in place as he exhales again, blowing his breath in her face and laughing sleepily at her expression. “What a charmer. Really. So glad I found you.”

“Have fun at breakfast,” is Zayn’s only response. He turns his head and kisses the inside of Niall’s wrist before turning back over onto his stomach and promptly falling back asleep.

\---  
“Hey, Ma,” Niall greets her mum with a kiss on the cheek. “I see you found Becky’s alright.”

“Lovely place,” her mum says, looking around as Niall takes a seat across from her. “This is the one you always tell me about?”

“Yeah, Becky’s has the best breakfast in town. And lunch. Unfortunately, they’re not open for dinner, but you win some, you lose some,” Niall answers, opening her menu. “Hey, where’s Greg?”

“He decided to give us some mummy-daughter time,” Maura says, reaching across the table to grab Niall’s hand. She squeezes her fingers lightly. “So, honey- catch me up! It’s been far too long since I’ve been properly updated. How is everything?”

“Um…” Niall starts. “Glad to be done with school; ready to head to uni-“ And then, breaking off with a slight giggle- “Zayn’s still a proper idiot.”

“But he’s treating you well?”

“Yeah, I-“ Niall’s laugh cuts off. “Of course he is, Mum.” There’s something about the way her Mum is looking at her, squeezing her hand and running her thumb over her knuckles alternately, that makes her stomach flip. “Mum, what’s going on?”

Maura’s face falls then, her grip on Niall’s hand tightening; Niall’s stomach drops and she knows. 

“Honey, there’s- there’s something I need to tell you.”

\---  
When Zayn gets home that afternoon, Niall’s car is out in the car park but the apartment is completely quiet.

“Ni?” He calls, kicking off his shoes and pushing the door closed. He sees Niall’s bag by the door, her worn out Chucks next to it, but he still doesn’t hear anything, which is odd- Niall’s never liked to just sit in silence, prefers to have a footy game on the TV or the radio playing. “Babe, are you here?”

“In here,” he barely hears from his bedroom. He heads down the hall and finds Niall in there, barefoot and with her arms crossed in front of her, pacing in front of his window.

“Babe?” He asks hesitantly, hovering in the doorway. Niall doesn’t normally sit still very well, so that’s not too unusual, but the way her shoulders are hunched, the way she’s curling in on herself as she paces back and forth, makes his stomach knot.

Niall turns at the sound of his voice and the knot in his stomach drops, his heart jumping up into his throat, when he sees that she’s obviously been crying, eyes puffy and red and tear tracks staining her cheeks. She freezes then, biting down hard on her bottom lip and tugging on the sleeves of the hoodie she’s wearing. She’s shaking, Zayn can see, her eyes welling up and her shoulders quaking, her brow furrowed with her effort to not burst back into tears.

As soon as Zayn starts to move, walking across the room and opening his arms to her, breathing out a “babe,” Niall’s face crumples and the tears spill over as she falls into his arms, allowing him to gather her up and hold her close.

He keeps her there, cradling her head against his chest with one hand at the base of her skull, his other arm wrapped tight around her shoulders. He can feel her fingers twisting in the material of his shirt at his back, and he’s never seen her like this before, never seen her so completely wrecked, sobbing so brokenly that she can’t even catch her breath.

He becomes even more concerned when he realizes that Niall actually can’t catch her breath, is sobbing heavily and basically hyperventilating in his arms. “Niall, love,” he says after a moment, leaning back just enough to hold her face in his hands. He leans in, presses his forehead against hers. “Come on, can you breathe? Breathe for me, yeah?”

She reaches up to grasp his wrists, still hiccuping through her sobs, and nods quickly. She draws in a shuddering breath, her chest heaving and her breath catching, but Zayn guides her through it, strokes his thumbs over the tear tracks on her cheeks and murmurs “Good, yeah, love, like that,” until she’s finally calmed down enough to breathe normally.

She catches her breath and leans back into Zayn’s arms, tucking her face into the crook of his neck. “I knew I should never have left her,” she says after a moment, but before Zayn can ask her what she means, she’s crying again, shaking in his arms and so, so broken.

He guides them over to his bed, sitting her down on the edge of the mattress and dropping to sit beside her, arm still around her shoulders as she cries. Eventually, she stops for long enough that she can sit up, lean back and grab Zayn’s hand and hold it in both of hers. She draws in a big, shuddering breath, like she’s bracing herself, and then- “Z, it’s- my mum is dying.”

Zayn’s breath leaves him in one big whoosh, and all he can do is gather Niall back into his arms, pressing his face into her hair, holding her as close as he can as she begins to cry once more.

“Oh, Ni,” he says, his own tears beginning to fall as he holds her.

He shifts to lay them back on the bed after a moment, lying on his back with Niall curled up into his side, hiccuping softly as her crying subsides.

His mind is reeling as they lay there, his hand stroking through Niall’s hair, and he has so many questions. He doesn’t want to push Niall, though, doesn’t want to overwhelm her any more than she already is, and so he just rolls onto his side, shifts so he’s facing her. He tangles his feet with hers and presses a kiss to her forehead, reaching up to brush her hair out of her face.

After a moment, Niall draws a shaky breath, and grabbing Zayn’s hand in hers again, she begins to speak.

“It, um-“ she starts, voice wavery. She closes her eyes and draws another breath before starting again. “It’s cancer?”

Saying it seems to shock her, and she starts to tear up again; she reaches up in between them to cover her face with her hands and tries to roll onto her back, pulling away from Zayn’s embrace.

“Ni,” Zayn says softly, pulling her hands away from her face. “Babe, it’s me,” he reminds her gently. He can count on one hand the amount of times he’s seen Niall cry in all the time he’s known her, but he’s never seen her like this. She’s usually so carefree, always smiling, and even when she is sad she doesn’t let anybody see it, and he doesn’t know how to react, doesn’t know what to say, so instead he just stays close, doesn’t let her withdraw and hide all of this from him.

She nods then and allows Zayn to pull her in again, his hand smoothing soothing circles across her back.

She starts again, then, and tells him everything her mum had told her that morning; starting with the first time she’d blacked out suddenly and had woken up on the floor in her kitchen and finishing with her visit to doctor after doctor, getting more and more of the same diagnosis- that there was nothing they could do, the tumor was inoperable and all they’d be able to do was manage her pain and work hard to keep her comfortable.

“It’s not fair, Zayn,” Niall says quietly once she’s finished, and it’s not, it’s absolutely not fucking fair. Zayn wishes he could take all of this, take all of this pain Niall is feeling and keep it, shoulder the weight of it for her so that she doesn’t have to. She doesn’t deserve this pain, this grief that she’s experiencing now and that she will be going through from here on out.

No one does.

Niall rolls onto her back and rubs at her eyes; Zayn reaches up and bumps her hand out of the way gently so he can wipe the tear tracks from her cheek with his thumb.

“Z, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” she says after a bit. She grabs his hand and pulls it down to rest on her chest, encased in both of hers, and she sighs heavily, squeezing her eyes shut. “I’ve been thinking about it since this morning and I think- I think I need to go to Ireland? For the summer, I mean.”

“Of course,” he says, leaning in and dropping a kiss to her forehead. “Do you want me to come with you? What do you need me to do, how can I-“

“I just-“ Niall says, and she scrubs her hands over her face again before turning back into Zayn and curling against him. She tucks her head under his chin and buries her face against his chest, wrapping an arm around his middle, squeezing tightly. “Just this?”

“Yeah, ‘course,” he responds and kisses the top of her head. “Of course.”

And she’s so tired, so completely and totally drained, that she falls asleep like that, tucked into Zayn’s embrace; it’s only four in the afternoon, the sun still shining through the window in his bedroom, but Zayn just pulls the comforter up over them and holds her tight, letting her sleep, giving her the reprieve she so desperately needs.

They end up sleeping until the next morning, and when Zayn wakes, Niall is starting to stir. He doesn’t want to her to wake up yet, because she’s so peaceful, so not hurting, but he knows that she has to, knows that he can’t keep her hidden from this forever.

She does wake up then, blinking her eyes open as she stretches slowly.

“Heya,” she murmurs, smiling at him.

“Hey,” Zayn says softly, watching Niall’s face intently. He sees the moment she remembers, the moment that she goes from having a nice lie-in to remembering that she’s losing her mum, and it’s like he can actually see her heart breaking all over again.

He feels so helpless, because Niall looks so small, so broken and so very, very lost, and she’s looking at him like he’ll be the one to tell her it’s all okay, it was all a bad dream and everything is going to be alright. And he wants to, he really does, but he can’t, and he doesn’t know what to say or do. All he can manage is another soft “hey” and then Niall’s face is crumpling.

He reaches out and pulls her into his arms, holding her tightly, and he wonders how many of her mornings are going to be like this.

 

\---

They make the arrangements for Niall to fly out two weeks later. Zayn decides to stay in England- as much as he wants to go, too, wants to be with her through all of this, he knows that what Niall needs is to spend some time with her mother, just the two of them.

“Will you come visit?” Niall asks, setting her knife down where she’s been helping Zayn chop up vegetables and turning to face him. 

“‘Course I will, Ni,” Zayn replies. “Don’t think I could go all summer without seeing you.”

“All summer?” Someone speaks from behind them, and they both turn to find Liam in the doorway. He’s got a bottle of wine in his hand, his brow furrowed as he looks at them. “Where are you going?”

“Um.” Niall starts, stops, turns to look at Zayn. “Um.”

“We’ll talk about it when the others get here, yeah?” Zayn cuts in, and Liam’s brow furrows even deeper, but he nods, walking further into the kitchen and setting the wine down on the table.

Lou and Haz arrive a few minutes later, and while Harry immediately walks over to take control of the knife from Niall, hip-checking her out of the way and citing “that’s not how you dice, Ni,” Louis heads over to where Zayn is cooking at the stove and tries to sneak bites without him noticing.

(He does notice, of course, and smacks her hand away without even looking away from what he’s doing.)

After he all but boots Niall out of the kitchen, Harry- along with Zayn- finishes cooking and they all sit down to eat. Louis is chatty as usual, keeping up the conversation throughout dinner, but they all notice that Niall seems more subdued, that’s she’s quieter than usual. More than once, Zayn has to pull her out of her head with a hand at her leg, squeezing her knee gently to bring her back into the conversation.

Liam is antsy throughout dinner, fidgeting in his chair, his knee bouncing and his fingers tapping, and Zayn can tell he’s itching with the need to comment about what he overheard when he arrived.

He doesn’t say anything, though, and Zayn is grateful for it- they’d invited everyone over for dinner so they could tell them about Niall’s mum, about her going away for the summer to spend time with her before school starts, but he can tell that she’s still working up the nerve, that she’s having a hard time trying to plan out what she’s going to say to her friends when she can barely wrap her mind around it herself.

By the time they head into the living room, stomachs full and beers in hand- Harry and Louis already bickering over what they’re going to watch- Liam can’t contain it anymore.

“What did you mean earlier?” He says, once they’re all seated, and Zayn feels Niall tense where she’s sitting beside him. “Where are you going this summer?”

“What?” Louis and Harry ask at the same time, and honestly, it’s ridiculous how in sync they are sometimes. 

When Liam doesn’t answer, they both turn their attention to where Niall and Zayn are sitting on the couch. Niall is very pointedly staring at the floor and Zayn is watching her carefully, closely.

“Ni,” Louis speaks after a moment. “Niall, where are you going?”

“Ireland,” Niall answers, eyes trained on the spot on the carpet where she’d spilled a beer a few months prior, during a house party Zayn had thrown where Louis had dared her to do something that was equal parts ridiculous and embarrassing and that she can hardly remember.

“Ireland? When?”

“For how long?”

“Why are you going?”

“When did you decide?”

Niall stands then, scrubbing her hands over her face before running them through her hair, pushing the long strands back off of her face. 

“My mum is dying,” Niall she says after a moment, effectively shutting everyone up. “There.”

Before Louis’ “oh my god” is even out of her mouth, Niall is gone. They hear the bathroom door slam closed a few seconds later and Harry, Liam and Louis all turn their attention to Zayn. 

“Um.”

By the time Niall returns ten minutes later, Zayn has explained the entire situation- he’s told them about Maura’s illness, about all of her doctor’s visits and how there’s not anything that can be done, and how Niall will be heading out in two weeks to spend the summer in Ireland so that she can spend some more time with her mum.

“How long?” Harry asks, his first words since Niall left the room. He’s not looking at any of them, his hands clasped tightly together in front of his knees, and Zayn knows that out of any of them, Harry is the one who understands how hard this will- and has already- hit Niall. He and Niall have always had a close bond, had hit it off the second they’d met in the hallway at school on Niall’s first day there after she and her dad had moved to England, and have been two peas in a pod ever since.

“Five months,” a voice speaks, and they all turn their heads to see Niall leaning against the doorway, fingers knotted in the hem of her shirt. “Maybe six.”

Liam opens his mouth to speak (to say what, he doesn’t know), but Louis cuts him off, standing up and rushing over to Niall with an “Oh, honey.”

She tackle-hugs her, arms tight around Niall’s neck, and Niall can feel wetness on her neck where Louis’ face is tucked there, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Niall’s own tears finally start to fall when Liam and Harry stand and join their hug, enveloping them both. The only person missing is Zayn, and he joins when he sees Niall’s hand move from where it’d been resting at Louis’ waist to extend outwards, reaching for him blindly. 

When they separate, Harry and Liam each take a turn pulling Niall into their arms and hugging her tightly. Liam’s arms are strong and warm around her, and he ducks his head to whisper a “I’m so sorry, babe,” into her ear. Harry takes her face in his hands, cupping her cheeks gently, and pulls her into him so that he can press his lips to her forehead, kissing her gently and then wrapping her up in his long, lanky limbs. 

“Oh, Ni,” he says, cheek pressed to the side of Niall’s head. 

After a moment, they separate, and Niall immediately makes her way back over to where Zayn is sitting on the loveseat, sitting next to him and tucking herself into his side, making herself small under his arm, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs. 

It shocks them all to see her like this- loud, carefree Niall, who usually spreads out and takes up as much space as she wants (and does it as loudly as she wants, too), quiet and timid and seeming so very, very small, but none of them comment on it, instead taking their own seats and turning their attention to the movie Liam has put on.

Ten minutes in, Louis stands and makes her way over to the loveseat, sitting down on Niall’s free side and scooching in close, resting an arm around Niall’s middle and her head on Niall’s shoulder. Niall doesn’t say anything, just drops her hand to squeeze Louis’ where it rests on her stomach and then laces her fingers through Louis’, holding onto her hand tightly as they watch Back to the Future.

\---  
Two weeks later, on the night before she flies out to Ireland, Zayn tells Niall to get dressed and ready to go out.

“I still have to finish packing, Z-” she starts, sitting on the floor in the midst of a pile of unfolded clothing. 

“Oi, is that my tank top?” Zayn asks, distracted, pointing to a bit of familiar fabric peeking out from underneath a couple of Niall’s pairs of shorts.

“I dunno,” Niall replies, tugging the top free and folding it quickly, looking up and winking at Zayn as she tucks it into her bag. “Looks better on me.”

“Yeah it does,” Zayn murmurs under his breath. “Now c’mon. Please?”

Niall huffs and puffs, grumbling under her breath as she stands, but Zayn can see the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth and knows she’s just messing around.

“Alright, then,” she says once she’s standing, her hands on her hips as she looks at Zayn. “So where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” Zayn answers, and steps carefully over a pile of clothing so he can lean in and press a quick kiss to Niall’s lips. “Now go get ready.”

“Bossy.”

“Like you’re any better.”

“Valid point,” Niall admits, and then pushes up on her toes to kiss Zayn again before navigating her way through the maze of unpacked items spread out on the floor and making her way to the bathroom.

A little under an hour later, they arrive at 242, and Niall grins when she sees Louis waiting outside. The grin is followed by a groan, though, and she turns to look at Zayn through narrowed eyes.

“You didn’t,” she says, and Zayn just laughs, taking her hand in his as they walk towards the entrance of the bar.

“I didn’t,” he replies, hands up in mock surrender. “But Harry may have.”

“Oh god,” Niall groans again. “Overconsiderate twat. How many?”

“Just us,” Zayn answers, and that seems to relax Niall a bit. 

They reach Louis then, and Louis- who is already a few drinks in, they can tell- throws herself at Niall, arms wrapped tight around Niall’s neck as she hugs her.

“Hiiii, Ni,” she says when they separate, and she reaches out and pats at Niall’s cheek. “And Zayn, hi Zayn.”

She leads them inside then, and Niall laughs outright when she sees that Harry has decorated the booth in the back with balloons and a banner that reads “We’ll miss you, Nialler!”

“Really?” she asks dryly when Harry spots her, but opens her arms nonetheless and lets him scoop her up in a hug, her feet barely touching the ground. “Thanks, bud.”

“‘Course,” Harry replies, arms squeezing tight around Niall’s middle. He sets her down after a moment and throws an arm around her shoulder, leading her over to the table where Zayn has already walked over and sat down with Louis and Liam.

Zayn reaches across the table when Niall slides into the booth across from him, covering her hand with his and squeezing gently. She meets his gaze and answers his unasked question with a quick nod, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth and letting him know she’s okay. 

They spend the night eating and drinking and laughing, talking about the time Louis had “accidentally” set off the fire alarms at school, getting them all out of class in time to sneak away to Zayn’s car and drive a few towns over for the concert that Harry had won tickets to while he was listening to the radio at work one afternoon.

“And then Niall drank that Big Gulp and had to pee-”

“But there was nowhere to stop and so Z pulled over-”

“And Niall went running into the woods-”

“And came running back out not ten seconds later-”

“There was a bear,” Niall interrupts them, trying to remain indignant even though she can’t stop laughing. “There was a bear! I don’t know why you twats won’t believe me!”  
\---  
“That was fun,” Niall says through a yawn later that night, cheek pressed to Zayn’s back as he unlocks the front door. “Fun, fun, fun.”

“Yeah, it was,” Zayn replies, pushing the door open and leading them inside, Niall’s arms still tight around his waist and cheek pressed into his back. “C’mon, I’ll help you finish packing and then we can go to bed, yeah?”

“We have good friends,” Niall murmurs, allowing Zayn to pull her inside and down the hallway. “Very, very good friends.”

“Good friends who like to get you tipsy,” Zayn responds, and Niall snorts out a laugh.

“Good Louis-es who like to get me tipsy,” Niall corrects. “S’okay. Am fine. Can pack.”

(She ends up falling asleep in a pile of unfolded clothing while Zayn packs around her. “Always been a sleepy drinker,” he murmurs, standing and picking Niall up, carrying her to the bed when he needs to get to the clothing she’s been using as a pillow.)

He finishes packing her bag and moves all of her stuff out into the front hall, making sure its ready to go since they’ll be leaving for the airport early in the morning. Heading back to the bedroom, he strips off and slides under the covers; when he flips the lamp on the nightstand off and turns back over, Niall’s eyes are wide open and she’s watching him.

“Shit,” Zayn murmurs. “Scared me.”

“Oops,” Niall replies, and her “sorry” is muffled as she shifts over, curling an arm around Zayn’s waist and scooting in close, resting her head next to Zayn’s on his pillow. “Heard you come back in.”

“Nice little nap?”

Niall smiles in response, but it’s small and tight, and she sighs heavily then, looking up at Zayn. “Z, I’m gonna miss you.”

“Oh, babe,” Zayn murmurs, raising a hand to cup Niall’s cheek in his palm, rubbing the pad of his thumb just under her eye. “I’m gonna miss you, too.”

“I don’t-” Niall’s voice wavers when she speaks, and she breaks off, takes in a deep, breath. “I don’t know- um. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do? With Mum, I mean,” she says after a moment, eyes trained on the tattoo that’s drawn just under his collarbone, and Zayn knows that she’s scared. Scared of the thought of having to watch her mother waste away, of having to be the strong one, scared that she won’t be enough. He can’t blame her - he doesn’t have a fucking clue what he’d do if the roles were reversed. 

“You’ll figure it out,” he says, leaning in to press his lips to Niall’s forehead in a quick kiss. “You’re pretty great at adapting, yeah?”

Niall doesn’t respond, just tilts her chin up slightly, and all Zayn has to do is angle his head down a bit and they’re kissing, just a quick press of their lips at first, and then Niall’s lips part and Zayn’s tongue slips past them, stroking over her own and oh, yeah, okay.

“Mmrph,” Niall moans against Zayn’s mouth when he rolls them, shifting on top of her and slotting his hips against hers. She settles into it then, sliding down a bit on the mattress and squeezing her legs where her knees bracket Zayn’s hips before pushing up, rocking her own hips purposefully against Zayn’s.

“See,” Zayn breaks off, pulling back just enough to speak. “Adapting.”

“Shut up,” Niall laughs breathlessly. She reaches up to cup the back of Zayn’s neck, tugging him back down to her so she can kiss him again.

Zayn is happy to hear her laugh again, to feel her smiling against his mouth as she kisses him; she hasn’t really at all lately, not as much as she usually does, and he just wants to make her smile one last time before she leaves for the summer. He wants to make her as happy as he can, wants to send her off with a reminder of what happiness feels like, knowing she’s loved and feeling full to the brim with it.

“I love you,” he says, pulling back just enough to speak, his lips brushing against hers with each of his words. He drops a quick peck against the corner of her mouth, and then another, and another, before leaning back up and looking at Niall, taking in the bright shine of her eyes and the plumpness of her lips, kiss swollen and pink. “I love you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Niall replies, rolling her eyes and pretending like she doesn’t love hearing him say it, but there’s a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as she looks at him. “I love you, too. Ya big ‘ol sap.”

Zayn ducks his head again, pressing a kiss to Niall’s bottom lip before taking it in between his teeth and tugging on it a little. Niall huffs out a breath through her nose at his action, fingers threading through the hair on the back of his neck and trying to pull him down further so she can kiss him properly. She arches against him when he slips a hand under the hem of her tank top, rough palm sliding against the smooth skin of her stomach and coming to a halt at her ribcage. His thumb grazes the underside of her breast and she draws in a breath, anticipating his next touch; it never comes, though, and when she blinks her eyes open, Zayn is watching her, propped up on his forearm, braced by her head, smirking down at her.

“Oi,” she says, and raises her free hand to push at his forehead. “Go on, then.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Zayn starts, ducking out from under her hand. He leans down and rests his forehead on her shoulder, mouthing at the sensitive skin at the column of her throat, and the slight stubble growing around his mouth is rough against her neck. “Did you mean-” And then the pad of his thumb flicks over her nipple and Niall gasps.“This?”

He cuts off the string of curse words he knows is about to roll of Niall’s tongue by leaning back up and slanting his mouth over hers, kissing her languidly. He rubs his thumb over her nipple again, his fingers splayed across her ribcage, and smirks against Niall’s mouth when she hooks a leg around his, her ankle catching right behind his knee, and pushes up, rocking against him purposefully.

She can feel him half-hard against the inside of her hip, and she reaches down, snaking an arm in between them to cup him through his boxer shorts, palming at the bulge there briefly and reveling in his gasp, in the way he breaks off their kiss and presses his forehead against hers when she slips a hand inside his pants to get her hand around his length.

“Gonna need you to get my pants off now,” Niall murmurs, surging up to press a quick kiss to Zayn’s lips, and Zayn most definitely doesn’t need to be told twice, whispering a hurried “yeah, okay” as he pushes back up onto his knees and tugs Niall’s pants down her legs. He gets his own off, too, and Niall laughs when he goes to kick them off his legs and ends up losing his balance, oof-ing when he falls on top of her. “God, you’re graceful, you know that?”

“Pants are off, aren’t they,” Zayn starts, pushing back up to lean over her again, bracing himself on his elbow. “I’d consider it a success.”

“Not quite a success yet,” Niall responds, trailing a hand down from his neck, across his chest and stomach, lower and lower until she can get her hand around him again, stroking him slowly, and Zayn’s jaw clenches at her touch, eyes fluttering shut as her fingers squeeze around him. “C’mon, Z. Need you, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Zayn breathes, ducking his head to kiss her quickly. “Yeah, fuck. Okay.”

Reaching down in between them, he puts his hand over hers on his length and guides himself to her center, the head of his cock nudging at her entrance. The hand Niall has in his hair tightens, fingers tugging at the strands when he pushes in, sliding inside and pressing in deep until he’s bottomed out, hips nestled against Ni’s and feeling her clench hotandtightandperfect around him. 

The press of Zayn inside her is fucking incredible, and Niall squeezes her fingers where her hand now rests at his hip, murmuring a “move, please, need you to,” against Zayn’s lips after a long moment. 

Zayn pushes himself back up so he’s on his knees again, reaching down to grip Niall’s hips and pull her against him, angling her hips up as he starts to move, and the way she’s spread out underneath him, long hair tousled, tank top rucked up over her stomach, her eyes falling shut as he rocks into her in long, slow thrusts, has him muttering a “fuck, Ni, look at you, jesus.” 

When Niall opens her eyes, reaching up with one hand to palm at her breast, Zayn groans, shifting his weight back down and dropping his forehead to rest on Niall’s shoulder. He presses his face further into her neck when she wraps her legs around his waist and he feels her nails digging into the tops of his arms, holding on to him as he begins to fuck into her quicker now, her own hips rocking up so she can meet each thrust.

She rolls her hips when she pushes up, clenching purposefully around him and Zayn groans again, mouthing at her neck, and it suddenly hits him that this is the last time they’ll be together in this way for awhile. He wants to draw it out, to tease her and make it last and send her off feeling so gloriously fucked that she won’t be able to wipe the smile off of her face, but all he can think about now is how this is the last time he’ll be inside her for who knows how long, the last time he’ll have her legs wrapped round his waist and her fingernails digging into his upper arms, leaving the marks he complains about but she knows he loves. “Don’t judge me,” he murmurs. “But I don’t think I’m gonna last-”

The words have barely left his mouth before his orgasm hits him hard, sudden and not so entirely unexpected, and his hips stutter as he comes, continuing to push into Niall as he rides it out.

“Ah, shit. Shit, fuck” he says after a moment, withdrawing gently and raising his head to look at Niall, a sheepish grin spreading over his face. “Sorry?”

“Useless bastard,” Niall responds, pushing at his shoulder, but she’s smiling too, laughing as she looks up at him. “Coming faster than a virgin getting his dick wet for the first time.”

“Shut up,” Zayn murmurs, ducking his head to kiss Niall quickly. “Here, lemme get you sorted, yeah?”

“You fucking better,” Niall smarts, flicking at his ear, but then he drops his head to mouth down her neck and across her collarbone, thumb stroking over her nipple once more where his hand has slipped back under her tank. 

Niall gasps when Zayn ducks his head and puts his mouth on her through her shirt, tongue getting the material wet; the wet heat from his tongue and from the material of her shirt scraping over her nipple has her writhing against him, fingers threaded in the hair at the back of his neck and holding him to her.

He shifts to give her other breast the same attention, this time hooking a finger in the collar of her tank and pulling it low enough that he can get his mouth on just her, no material in between them, and scrapes his teeth lightly over the hardened nub. He smirks when Niall gasps again, arching up off the bed and into him, and starts to make his way down her torso, pushing her shirt up higher as he goes down lower, alternating between dropping light kisses and scraping his teeth over the soft skin of her tummy. 

He scoots down even lower, laying flat on his stomach on the mattress and shifting so Niall’s legs are hooked over his shoulders, his face even with her cunt and his arms wrapped under her legs shifting her hips up towards him. He looks up her body then, smirks up at her and winks, and Niall's laugh is cut off when he ducks his head and licks across her quickly, just once. She twitches, his action sending a shiver up her spine, still all pent up and the first touch of his tongue sends a shock right through her. Zayn turns his face and kisses the inside of her thigh and then latches onto the sensitive skin there, sucking hard and leaving a mark. He feels Niall's hand at the back of his head, fingers threading through his hair and tugging, and he breaks off with a chuckle, murmurs a "yeah, okay, I get it" against her thigh before returning his attention to her center, ducking his head and licking across her once more, flicking his tongue over her clit and grinning up at Niall when she whines.

He gives up on the teasing then, shifts again so he's resting on his elbows, Niall's legs still over his shoulders, and uses his hands to hold her thighs open, getting his mouth on her properly and sucking on her clit until she's trembling above him. 

"Fuck, Zayner," she says breathlessly, hand thats not in his hair pushing her own hair off of her face. "C'mon, I need-"

"Yeah? What do you need?" Zayn asks, his mouth still on her, and his words send vibrations shooting up her spine. She whines again, pushes her hips up against his face.

"More, need more," Niall answers, still shifting listlessly against him, and she reaches down, grabs his wrist and guides his hand from where it rests at the inside of her thigh to her cunt, eyes fluttering shut when he gets the hint and runs the tips of two fingers through the wetness there. He presses an open mouthed kiss to her clit as he presses those two fingers inside her, relishing the way Niall gasps and clenches down around them.

Zayn twists his fingers inside her, curling them and mouthing at her clit again, teeth scraping lightly over the sensitive bundle of nerves, and Niall feels like she’s on fire, heat spreading from her toes up to her face. She can feel her orgasm building low in her belly, coiling tighter and tighter as Zayn continues to work her over, fucking her with both his fingers and his tongue, and when he crooks his fingers and presses up, licking at her insistently, Niall moans, fingers tightening in his hair and hips rocking up against his face as she falls apart, her back arching off of the mattress and her toes curled as she comes hard and fast.

Zayn licks her through it, lapping at her slick-wet folds and moving his fingers slowly in and out, in and out, until Niall shudders again and pushes at his forehead, over-sensitive and trying to get her knees closed.

“God, you’re good at that,” she murmurs when Zayn crawls back up her body, and she’s so sated, her eyelids heavy and her muscles completely relaxed, that she can’t even be bothered to care when Zayn wipes his mouth and hand on the material of her tank top. “You’re washing that.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Zayn mock salutes, and then leans over her, sliding his arm under her head, and presses his lips to hers. Niall can taste herself- and some of Zayn, too- in his kiss, and she moans quietly against his lips, reaching up to wrap her arms around his shoulders.

They part after a moment, and Zayn can’t help but drop a series of kisses across Niall’s cheeks and nose when he sees the flush that covers her skin, and Niall laughs under his ministrations.

“Stop,” she says through a breathless giggle, turning her face and tilting her chin up so their lips meet again. She sighs contentedly against his mouth, fingers scratching absently through the short hairs at the nape of his neck, and they’re both smiling when they pull apart. “‘K, get off me now. Your skinny hip bones are diggin’ in.”

Zayn wiggles his hips in response, hip bones tickling where they dig into her skin, and Niall laughs outright, unable to stop the giggle that bubbles up from her chest. She follows when Zayn rolls off of her, shifting onto her side and resting her head on his chest. She throws a leg over his body and traces her fingers across the tattoos on his chest idly, swirling against the sprawling scripts under his collarbone. 

“Love you, Z,” Niall says through a yawn, fingertips tapping out a rhythm at the center of his sternum that she’s got in her head. 

“Yeah, Ni,” Zayn replies, turning his head to press a kiss to Niall’s temple. “I love you, too.”

That’s all Niall needs, it seems, because she drifts off after that, tucked in close to Zayn’s side, his arm wrapped around her shoulders and lips pressed to her temple.

He’s not ready to let her go just yet, knows how difficult it will be to bring her to the airport tomorrow and say goodbye, to watch her get on a plane and head away for an entire summer, and so he shifts onto his side, pulls Niall’s sleeping form impossibly closer, rests his chin on top of her head and wraps his arms around her tight.

“It’ll be okay,” Niall murmurs, voice thick and slurred with sleep, muffled where her lips are pressed against Zayn’s chest. “We’ll be okay.”

Niall’s words cause Zayn to choke up, a lump in his throat forming and his nose burning, and he nods imperceptibly, pressing kiss after kiss to the top of Niall’s head, because even though she’s scared out of her mind, doesn’t know what to expect or how to handle the next couple of months, he knows that she believes, that she knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that she and Zayn can- and will- make it through this.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life is at a turning point for Niall- she's graduating, getting ready to start university, and she feels like she's got the world in the palm of her hand- and the best part is that she gets to begin this new stage of her life with her Zayn and their three best mates by her side.
> 
> Life throws her a curveball, though, and instead of spending the summer with her boyfriend and her friends, she ends up on a red-eye flight back to Ireland. It's hard enough being away from Zayn and the others, but when coupled with the reason for her leaving in the first place, the trip starts to drain her of her energy. She returns completely drained and waiting for the other shoe to drop.
> 
> When it does, Zayn, along with their friends, are there to help her pick up the pieces of her now shattered world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for my 2012-2013 big bang, originally posted 02-28-13 on my lj!
> 
> disclaimer: i made this up no harm was meant insert standard disclaimer here

Zayn's been waiting at the terminal for nearly two hours (he's not been checking his watch every five seconds. He hasn't. It’s just-Niall's flight had been delayed after he hasn't seen her since he visited in June, nearly two months ago, and he’s really about to lose his mind) when he hears a loud "Zayner!"

He looks up just in time to see Niall come running out of the terminal, and his heart soars as she flings herself into his arms, burying her face in his neck and wrapping her arms around his shoulders tight. Zayn picks her up off the ground with his arms around her waist (and he's very aware of how romcom the whole thing is, thank you, but he's finally got his girl in his arms and he just doesn't care), holding her to him as close as possible.

"Ni," he breathes, smiling when he sets her back down on her feet. She doesn't respond, though, and he doesn't have a chance to say anything else, because then she surges up on her tip-toes to kiss him, reaching up to cup the back of his neck and pull him down to her. She pulls away, breathless, a few moments later, pressing their foreheads together quickly before taking a step back and looking Zayn over from head to toe.

"Look at your hair!" she says, running her fingers through the now-blonde streak that runs through the mess of hair covering his forehead.

"Yeah, Lou got a hold of me while I was sleeping," Zayn replies. "Look at yours, babe!"

"Ugh, I'd rather not," Niall replies, rolling her eyes. Her hair is darker than Zayn has ever seen it, her natural brown now predominant after a summer with no touch ups. It's long, too, falling close to the small of her back, and Zayn has to reach grab a strand that's falling in her face.

"Nah, looks great," he mutters, and then he's oofing through a faceful of hair when Niall throws herself at him again, this time wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her nose into his chest.

"I missed you so much," she says quietly, almost timidly (and Zayn's heart breaks for her again, he can't even keep count anymore, because since when is Niall timid?).

“I missed you, too,” Zayn responds, pulling back so that he can cup Niall’s face in both hands and lean in to kiss her again. When they separate, he reaches down and tangles his fingers with his. “C’mon, let’s go home.”

“Home,” Niall says quietly, squeezing his fingers lightly. “Sounds good to me.”

By the time they get home, Niall’s demeanor has completely changed.

“Z, c’mon, leave the bags,” she all but pleads, standing next to him by the boot. She reaches down to where he’s picking up her suitcase and covers his hand with hers when he doesn’t stop. “Babe.”

Zayn does stop then, turning his head to look at Niall’s face, and the way she’s cocking her eyebrow, her free hand on her hip and a glint in her eye, causes him to drop the bags back into the boot.

“Oh,” he says. “Oh. Yeah. Okay.”

They’re barely inside Zayn’s apartment when Niall turns and crowds against him, backing him against the now closed door and pulling him down to her with her hands on either side of his face.

“C’mon,” she says, in between kisses. “Zayn, I-“

“Yeah, yeah,” Zayn answers. He knows what she wants, what she needs, and with an arm around the small of her back, flips them so she’s against the wood of the door, pressing in close and hemming her in. With his arm still around her waist, he hauls her against him, pushing in so close that she has to tilt her head almost completely back. She opens up to his kiss when he swipes his tongue across her bottom lip, hooking an ankle around his calf and wrapping an arm around his neck to pull him impossibly closer. She whimpers when Zayn moves his hands to her hips and holds her tight, anchoring her against the door, and Zayn ducks his head to press a kiss to her neck.

“I’ve got you,” Zayn says, leaning up to kiss her again quickly before pulling back and tangling his fingers with hers.

He leads her down the hall to his room and lays her out on the mattress, knowing that she needs him to be close and never letting their bodies separate for too long, settling in between her legs and pressing his body flush over hers.

“Babe, Zayn-“ Niall starts, reaching in between them to undo Zayn’s trousers, grabbing his hips and pulling him down to her, rocking up into him.

“C’mon, let me,” Zayn mutters, pressing a kiss to her mouth before trailing his lips from her jaw, down the line of her throat. He pushes up her sweater, exposing her stomach, and kisses from her ribs down to below her belly button as he hooks his fingers into the waistband of her trackies and pulls them down, tugging her panties down with them.

“Get your kit off too, I swear to god,” Niall starts, kicking the material off her legs, but chokes off with a moan with Zayn slides back down in between her legs, spreading her open with gentle hands at the inside of her thighs. She shudders as his breath ghosts across her skin, heavy and hot, and Zayn feels her hands pushing insistently at his shoulders. “Zayn, c’mon, I need you, please-”

It’s been so long for both of them, too long since they’ve been together, and she’s home now, finally, back where she belongs. He doesn’t want to waste any time, ducking down and cutting off Niall’s pleading with a quick lick across her, reacquainting himself with her taste and causing her to gasp, hands scrabbling for purchase in the material of his shirt. Her legs fall open wider and her fingers slip into Zayn’s hair, and Zayn can feel her both trying to pull him closer and tug him off of her. He licks across her once more, long and languid, before closing his lips around her clit. Niall gasps and her hips buck up involuntarily- Zayn lifts his head and smirks up at her before raising up onto his hands and knees to climb back up her body. “Later,” he promises with a kiss, grabbing Niall by the hips and pulling her closer after she’s tugged his shirt over his head and pushed his pants and boxers down. Niall reaches down to wrap a hand around his length, guiding him to her center, her eyes slipping shut and mouth falling open in a silent “oh” as the blunt head of his cock nudges against her entrance.

“Jesus,” Zayn mutters, face pressed in Niall’s neck once he’s buried completely in her, hips cradled against hers. She’s hot and tight and slick and perfect around him, and he mouths at the junction of her neck and shoulder, unmoving, allowing her time to adjust.

“Move, Zayn, please,” she speaks, rocking her hips up against him. Somehow, she’s managed to get her sweater and her bra off, and Zayn ducks his head to lick over a pert nipple, eliciting another gasp from her- a gasp that turns into a breathless moan when he scrapes his teeth lightly over the nub before closing his lips around it to suck hard, just once, Niall’s fingernails scratching over the meat of his shoulders as he finally rocks his hips back, minutely, and pushes back in. “Finally,” Niall breathes, and Zayn laughs, allowing Niall to pull him back up for a kiss with her fingers threaded in the hair at the nape of his neck. “Come on then,” she says against his mouth, swiveling her hips up to meet his. “Been too long, don’t tease, please.”

Zayn laughs again, nipping at Niall’s bottom lip as he pulls almost completely out. “Never,” he says, and Niall’s response dies on her lips as he pushes back in with one long thrust, filling her completely, and it’s been so long, too long, and she never wants to go that long without having him ever again. They fit together perfectly, bodies working in tandem, Niall meeting Zayn thrust for thrust as he fucks into her, her eyes fluttering closed when Zayn ducks his head to whisper into her ear (“I missed you, I love you, god you’re so perfect, so beautiful, look at you, Ni”), gasping when he nips at her earlobe at the same time that he slips a hand in between them to stroke his thumb over her clit. She’s close, so blindingly close, and Zayn knows it, wrapping his arm around the small of her back and hauling her up, changing the angle he’s pushing into her with and with one, two, three more thrusts, she’s tumbling over the edge, the knot in her core exploding as her orgasm rips through her, toes curling and fingers digging into Zayn’s shoulders.

Her hands shake as she reaches up to smooth Zayn’s hair off of his sweat-damp forehead, pulling him down so she can kiss him as he continues to push into her, fucking her through the aftershocks of her orgasm and getting closer and closer to his own. “Come on Zayn, babe, come for me, need you to-“

Zayn cuts her off with a low groan, his hips stuttering and then going still as he comes, spilling deep into Niall, his forehead pressed into her neck and the muscles in his back stretched taut under his skin, Niall’s hands smoothing up and down his sides.

“Holy fucking shit,” Niall says after a moment, and Zayn laughs, breathing labored as he pulls out and drops carefully onto his side beside Niall. “So… now we know how good we are at reunion sex.”

Zayn rolls his eyes and pushes up on his elbow to lean over Niall. He ducks down to kiss her again, this time soft and sweet. “I love you,” he says, over and over in between kisses. “I love you, I love you, iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou.”

Niall rolls her eyes and pushes at his shoulders, laughing, but she’s blushing, and she reaches up to cup Zayn’s jaw, thumb stroking across his bottom lip. “I love you too, Z. Even if you are a big sappy twat.”

“Whatever, you love it,” Zayn says, knocking his forehead against Niall’s temple.

“I do,” Niall adheres, yawning as she shifts so she’s lying on her side, Zayn spooned up behind her, his arm around her waist and his nose pressed to the back of her neck. “M’glad I’m back.”

“Glad you’re back, too, love,” Zayn whispers, and he sounds sleepy, too. “Wasn’t the same here without you. Didn’t feel right.”

“Mmm,” is all Niall manages, scooting back until she’s pressed back against Zayn’s chest, resting her hand on top of his on her stomach. They doze off like that, warm and sated and happy to be back in each other’s presence.

When they wake up a few hours later, both of their phones are ringing shrilly.

“The fuck?” Niall grumbles, sliding from under Zayn’s arm to slip out of bed, grabbing her phone from the jeans she’d kicked across the room. “Hello?”

“Nialler!” Louis screams- no, really, she screams- and Niall groans, holding the phone away from her ear. “Hi! You’re back!”

“Lou, why are you calling from Harry’s phone?”

“I’m calling both of you- I dialed Zayn on my phone and you on Harry’s. Figured one of you would answer eventually. Z was supposed to call us when he picked you up, but he didn’t, so we’re coming over now, k?” And then Louis says “love you!” and Niall can hear two other voices (Harry and Liam, she knows) shouting as well, but before she can respond, Louis hangs up, leaving Niall listening to a blaring dial tone.

She rubs at her eyes and tosses her phone back onto the pile of her discarded clothing; when she looks back to the bed, Zayn is awake, lying on his back with his hands behind his head.

“Enjoying the free show?” Niall asks, rolling her eyes at Zayn’s blatant staring.

“Well, you did get out of the bed completely starkers, how am I supposed to not look?”

Niall flushes under Zayn’s gaze and she bites at her bottom lip as she steps beside the bed, dropping to one knee on the mattress and swinging her other leg over so she’s straddling Zayn’s waist. She leans down, bracing herself on her forearms on either side of Zayn’s head, but before she can press her lips to his, there’s a loud knock on the door.

“Shit!” Niall says, rolling off of Zayn and pulling the covers off of him so she can cover herself.

“Well, excuse you-“ Zayn starts, scrambling for something to cover his own naked arse with, but then they hear Louis’ loud laugh and the jangling of her key ring and three sets of footsteps crossing the threshold into Zayn’s apartment. “Oh, fuck.”

“Zayner, Nialler,” Louis sing-songs as she comes closer to Zayn’s room. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

Niall just barely manages to finish getting dressed, pulling her sweater on right as she hears Louis outside Zayn’s door, and she can’t help but laugh when Zayn trips himself as he scrambles to pull his trousers up.

The door swings open then, revealing Louis (with a chesire-cat grin on her face), Harry, and Liam.

“I told you, I told you!” Louis exclaims gleefully, bouncing on her toes and clapping her hands. “They were totally fucking.”

“Z, why are you on the floor?” Liam asks from behind Louis, and Niall is laughing so hard at this point that there are tears streaming down her face.

“Serves him right,” Louis says, waggling a finger at Zayn, whose pants are still tangled around his ankles. “You were supposed to call us when she got in, mister!”

“My fault,” Niall pipes in once she’s stopped laughing long enough to catch her breath. She looks at Louis and shrugs. “Kinda jumped his bones the second we got home.”

“Oh. Okay, then, you’re forgiven,” Louis says to Zayn before turning back to Niall and running at her full steam ahead. She pulls her into an almost painfully tight hug, but it’s a Louis hug and so she’s okay with it, really. “Niall! You’re back!”

“Did you call from the street or something?” Niall grumbles, but she’s smiling as she hugs Louis back. “I talked to you like ten seconds ago.”

Harry’s snort from the doorway lets her know that she’s right, and she looks over Louis’ shoulder to gesture at Liam and Harry to join their hug.

“S’good to see you guys,” she says, pulling away after a moment and hugging Harry and Liam separately. “Missed you all.”

“How are you?” Liam asks then, and Zayn feels the mood in the room shift, feels everyone’s eyes watching Niall intently as they wait for her answer.

“You know,” Niall starts, shrugging and plastering a smile on her face. “I’ve been better.”

Louis murmurs an “oh, honey,” and reaches out to grab Niall’s shoulders, pulling her into another hug.

“Come on,” Niall says after a moment, pulling back. She looks at them each quickly, and when her eyes land on Zayn’s, he can see her silent plea there. “There’s gonna be more than enough time for sad later. Right now, I just wanna enjoy being back with my boy and our friends, yeah?”

“Yeah, of course,” Zayn says, meeting Louis’ eyes. He knows she wants to ask questions- he does, too- but he knows Niall will tell them when she’s ready. And right now, she’s not. “C’mon, let’s go grab something to eat.”

\---

 

The first week after she gets back, Niall doesn’t talk about her summer in Ireland, doesn’t tell Zayn about her mum’s condition until one night when Louis drags them out to the bar and Niall gets so drunk that she ends up sitting on the bathroom floor back at Zayn’s, curled up in his arms and crying, sobs wracking her body as she tells him that “It’s not fair, Z, it’s not fair and she’s dying and there’s nothing we can do and it’s not fucking fair.”

“I know, babe,” Zayn murmurs, lips pressed to Niall’s hair. “I know it’s not.”

Niall passes out like that, tucked under Zayn’s arm; Zayn stands and carries her to his bed after a few minutes, changing her into one of his t-shirts and pulling the covers up and over her.

When he wakes the next morning, Niall is watching him intently, turned onto her side facing him. She takes a big breath in, like she’s steadying herself, and Zayn thinks this is it. 

“She’s not even herself anymore, Z,” she starts, quietly. “I… I found her on the bathroom floor one afternoon, I have no idea how long she’d been there?”

Niall breaks off then, pulling in a shuddering breath, and Zayn scoots closer, presses a kiss to her forehead and drops so his head is resting next to hers on her pillow.

“I’m here,” he reminds her quietly after a moment, and Niall nods, squeezing her eyes shut and taking a breath before continuing.

She starts at the beginning, tells him all about the doctor’s visits, about how Maura’s condition had gotten worse and worse until she and Greg had had to hire a live-in nurse, someone who had the knowledge and could care for her better, look after her, keep track of her medicine and keep her comfortable.

“And I just-“ Niall breaks off. “I didn’t know what to do, how to help her, Zayn, and she just kept getting worse. She was so out of it by the end of the summer that she, she-“

“S’okay,” Zayn says, reaching up to smooth Niall’s hair away from her face and giving her a moment to catch her breath.

“She was just so small, so small and fragile and she slept all the time, and it didn’t even look like her lying there, I didn’t know what to do or what to say-“

She breaks off again, and Zayn can tell that she’s done for now. He snakes his arm around her middle, his thumb rubbing at the small of her back, and just holds her close, lets her stay there in his arms and try to deal with everything she’s got going on.

Zayn realizes then that what Niall needs isn’t them trying to coax her into being her normal self again- she needs time to settle, time to adapt to living her life with the knowledge that her mum isn’t going to be with her for much longer- and so he stops trying to pull her out to the local park for a game of footy, stops letting Louis drag them out for drinks and just lets Niall be.

They spend the last couple of days before fall semester starts holed up at Zayn’s, Niall sitting with him in his studio and hanging out while he paints. It’s nice, he thinks, having Niall there, and he can tell how much she appreciates him not pressuring her to be her usually bubbly self just yet.

She turns to him one day, closing her book (another one of the ones Harry had brought over to her) and watching him, and when he feels her gaze on him he sets his brush down and crosses over to her, sitting down next to her.

“Hey,” he says, pushing up on one knee so that he can lean in and kiss her quickly.

“Hey,” she says back quietly, reaching up to cup his cheek in her palm. She smiles, quick and small, before pushing up and kissing him gently, pulling back and saying “Hey,” again, and Zayn knows exactly what she’s trying to say. He tells her so with a hand on her knee, squeezing gently, and Niall bumps her forehead against his shoulder.

It’s her way of saying thank you.

It takes awhile to convince Louis that what Niall needs right now is for them to just be there, that she doesn’t need to be dragged out all day and night and forced to have fun, but eventually he does. The others come around at night, food (pizza or Chinese or McDonald’s) in tow, and they just sit and chill, curled up together on the couch and watching movies. They keep Niall out of her head, keep her from withdrawing into her thoughts and pulling away from them, but they don’t try to coax her into being her usual cheerful and bubbly self, and Zayn can tell how grateful she is for that by the way she intertwines her fingers with his and squeezes, looking up at him and giving him a small, appreciative smile.

\---

School starts, and things get hectic for a bit- Zayn has been offered an exhibit by one of the local art studios, and even though he hesitates to take it, doesn’t want Niall to feel like he’s more concerned with his art and is leaving her to deal with this by herself, Niall tells him that there is “absolutely no way in hell you won’t say yes, Zayn Malik,” and that’s that.

She continues to hang out with him at the studio- now downtown, where they’ve given him a space of his own to work for the time being- when she’s not in class, since he’s there most of the time now, when he’s not in his own classes.

“You’re cute when you concentrate,” Niall pipes up one day, sitting on the countertop in the studio where she’s working on her readings for one of her classes.

“I’m cute all the time,” Zayn responds, winking at her. “How’s the reading going?”

It’s a gentle reminder, something he’s had to start doing, because Niall is so distracted, so lost in her thoughts and worries that she can’t focus.

“Oh, right,” Niall says, looking down at the book that’s open in her lap. “Should probably get back to that.”

Zayn sets his brush down and crosses the distance between them, stepping in between Niall’s legs and pushing in close, ducking down to catch her lips in a quick kiss, parting his lips slightly and sucking her top lip in between his own. He reaches up to cradle her face in his hands, thumbs grazing over her cheekbone and the tips of his fingers brushing the back of her neck as he deepens the kiss, licks over the seam of her lips and into her mouth, stroking his tongue over her own. 

As soon as he’d started, he’s gone, leaving Niall breathless and flushed, blinking confusedly.

“Wha-” She starts, shaking her head. “Um. Why’d you stop?”

“Finish your reading and I’ll kiss you some more,” Zayn responds from where he’s back behind his easel, laughing when Niall curses under her breath but returns to her book, crossing her legs underneath her and resting her head in her hand as she reads. 

\---

Niall surprises Zayn at his studio one afternoon in November after a test, paper bag full of sandwiches and crisps in her hand, backpack slung over her shoulder.

Zayn does a subtle once-over of Niall's face as she walks in, looking to see if the bags under her eyes are still there (they are), bundled up in one of her favorite sweaters with her hair pulled up into a ponytail.

"Hey, babe," he says, leaning over to meet Niall's kiss and then pulling her into a tight hug. "How was your test?"

"Fine," Niall answers, wrapping her arms around Zayn's middle and pressing her nose into his chest, head tucked under his chin. "Glad to have it done, though. You hungry?"

"Starving," Zayn murmurs, and presses a kiss to the top of Niall's head.

They eat on the floor by the window, legs crossed and knees touching where they sit across from each other. Niall steals pieces of Zayn's sandwich, laughing as she does so, and it feels like it's been so long (too long) since she's laughed without hesitating first, but he can still see the doubt in her eyes, the part of her that’s saying tread lightly, everything is about to fall to shit even as she’s laughing with him. 

They pack up their things and head outside the studio together when they're done eating, Zayn listening as Niall tells him about Louis' frantic call that morning when she somehow managed to wake up with her pajama pants back on but her underwear mysteriously (or not so mysteriously) missing, even though she swears it was on when she fell asleep. Niall breaks off with a gasp as they pause at the door for Zayn to lock up and she sees the flyer hanging in the window.

"Babe!" She says, pointing to the paper. It's a flyer for Zayn's exhibit, set for November 27th- it's his first "real" show, having been invited to one of the local art shops to put his stuff on display for a weekend. "Why didn't you tell me they finished them?"

"S'not a big deal," he mutters, toeing at the ground and shoving his hands in his pockets. Niall rolls her eyes and reaches out to punch at his shoulder before tugging on the lapel of his jacket, looking up at him fondly.

"Proud of you," she says, pushing up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his lips, and her eyes glint with mischief when she steps back. "I'm gonna take a picture of it. And send it to your mum."

"No!" Zayn exclaims, trying to snatch Niall's phone from her hand when she pulls it from her pocket. She's quicker than him though, and she blocks him out like she would if she had a football at her feet as she takes a picture of the flyer. "C'mon, she'll come if you send it to her, and then she'll get all blubbery and I'd actually like to impress these people-"

Niall straightens then and turns to Zayn, winking at him as she slips her phone into her back pocket.

"You’ve already impressed them, Zayner," She says, smiling up at him. Her eyes are wide and deceptively innocent, as if she hadn't just been tormenting Zayn, (and he's really not sure if she sent the picture or not, if he's honest) when she speaks again, poking lightly at his chest. “Walk me to class?”

Zayn rolls his eyes but can't help but smile back at Niall, who is grinning up at him sweetly, and he chuckles as he throws an arm over her shoulders. She settles in quickly, easily, head resting on his shoulder and arm around his waist, hand tucked into his jacket pocket as they walk down the street towards campus.

He kisses her goodbye at the steps of the Rodger Building before walking across campus to where he knows Louis will be sitting at a table in the library harassing Harry and Liam while they study. 

(Or, rather, while they try to study.)

"Zaaaaaayn!" Louis sing-songs quietly (which only Louis would be able to pull off, really), and she jumps out of her chair to greet him with a hug that's warm and tight and distinctively Louis. "Come to join me in the harassing of Haz and Li?"

"Not today, Lou," Zayn responds, and winks at Harry when Harry shoots him a grateful smile. Liam has somehow managed to stay focused on his textbook, head bowed over the pages as he reads. "Besides, don't you have class?"

Louis frowns and grabs Zayn's wrist to look at his watch. "Oh, shit, I gotta go," she starts, and leans over the table to kiss Harry goodbye, dropping a kiss to Liam’s cheek as well. "See you later."

"Hey, mate," Harry says to Zayn after a moment. "Alright?"

"Yeah," Zayn starts, but then sighs, dropping into a chair next to Liam, scrubbing his hands over his face. "No. I don't know."

"Ni?" Harry guesses, clicking his tongue sympathetically when Zayn nods. Liam looks up then, bookmarks his page with a worn out post it and turns to Harry and Zayn.

"I don't know what to do, how to help her," Zayn starts. "She's- it's like, she seems to be doing better lately? She's laughing more and she doesn't seem as sad, but she's still so distracted, and I don't want this little bubble to burst just yet, you know? I know that it's going to soon, and I don't think she's ready. I know she's not."

“No one could be ready for what she’s gonna have to deal with, Z,” Harry says. “There’s no way to get ready for that.”

“Hey,” Liam says after a moment. “We’ve got a three day weekend coming up- why don’t you guys go somewhere, do something? Just to get her out of town for a bit, give you both a bit of a break, yeah?”

“That’s a great idea, actually,” Harry says, turning to look at Zayn. “You should, Z.”

\-----

After much consideration and a little bit of quick planning, Zayn takes Liam and Harry’s advices and wakes Niall up early the next morning.

“Niall,” he whispers softly, kissing her on the cheek. “Babe, wake up.”

Niall stirs and blinks her eyes open slowly, but then she startles, eyes widening as she sits up quickly.

“What is it, what is it,” she says, throwing the comforter off of herself and starting to slide out of bed. “Did it happen, is it Mum-“

“No, no,” Zayn cuts her off. He reaches out and pulls her into his arms, rubbing the top of her arm with one hand and brushing through her hair with the other. “God, I’m sorry, I didn’t think that through enough, did I?”

“Jesus Christ,” Niall says, letting out a breath. She punches at Zayn’s shoulder lightly before bending back over herself, resting her elbows on her knees and scrubbing her face with her hands. "Shit. Shit."

“I know, I’m sorry,” Zayn says again, and he feels truly terrible for scaring her. “I’m so sorry, babe.”

“Okay, well if you’re done scaring the shit out of me, can I go back to bed now? Shit.”

“No,” Zayn answers, and Niall pauses, looking at him confusedly. He stands, extending a hand to her, and it’s then that she sees the travel bag packed and sitting by the door to his room. 

“C’mon.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” is Zayn’s response. “Get dressed, babe.”

Niall huffs but slides out of bed nevertheless, changing quickly and following Zayn outside into the cold November air. She slides into the passenger seat of his car, shivering from the chill, and looks at Zayn questioningly when he slides in behind the wheel.

“You’ll see,” is his response to her unasked question, and Niall narrows her eyes at him but settles into her seat, reaching into the back to grab the blanket she knows is stashed back there so she can try to warm up.

“Fine, then I’m going back to sleep.”

Zayn just chuckles, reaching over and resting his hand on her knee. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll wake you when we get there.”

She wakes on her own, two hours later. The sun is rising as Zayn pulls the car off of the main road, and Niall sits up to look out the window.

“Are we-“ She starts, rubbing at her eye. “Are we at the beach?”

“Yep,” Zayn answers, turning to smile at her. “Surprise.”

“Z, it’s the middle of fucking November.”

“The beach is beautiful all year round,” Zayn responds quickly, winking at her. He reaches over to grab her hand, squeezing her fingers lightly. “Besides. I figured a little getaway might be nice, yeah?”

Niall smiles when she realizes what he means and raises their joined hands to kiss Zayn’s knuckles. “Yeah. Sounds good.”

Zayn drives around until they find a motel sitting beachfront, ‘vacancy’ sign blinking dully in the early morning light. They check in to a room, ignoring the glare the grumpy old woman is giving them as she hands them their key, and Niall ventures out onto what she discovers is a small porch overlooking the beach while Zayn pokes around the room.

He joins her outside a few minutes later, finding her leaning against the railing of the porch and watching the waves crash on the shore.

“’Cha doing?” He asks as he steps behind her, chest pressed to her back and arms wrapped snug around her middle.

“Just watching,” Niall answers, leaning back into him. She covers his hands with hers on her stomach, tilting her head back to rest on his shoulder.

They stay there for a while, watching the waves tide and the rest of the world wake up as the sun continues to rise.

An older man runs by after a few minutes, turtleneck pulled up over his chin and hat pulled low over his brow to protect himself from the chilly wind; after that, they see a young couple walk by, leading a big dog on a leash, their hands intertwined between them; an older woman steps out of the door on the porch three doors down, lighting- or trying to light- a cigarette. Zayn snuffles a laugh into Niall’s neck as the lady grows increasingly frustrated when the cigarette won’t light, the wind too strong and continually preventing the flame from catching.

“You’re not gonna find it as funny when you’re trying to grab a smoke later,” Niall murmurs, and Zayn sobers quickly as he realizes she’s right.

“Shit,” he says, and then Niall is the one laughing. “Holy- it’s so cold.”

“Zayn. It’s the middle of November,” Niall reminds him again, and even though Zayn can’t see her face, he knows she’s rolling her eyes at him.

They head inside a few minutes later when Zayn shivers and Niall’s stomach growls, and Niall flops onto her back on the bed while Zayn thumbs through a pamphlet on the nightstand in search of a breakfast spot.

“Tired,” Niall says a few moments later, turning onto her stomach and pushing into Zayn’s space. 

“C’mon, cuddle me.”

“Ni, you’re hungry,” Zayn reminds her, but Niall just makes a sleepy little noise in the back of her throat and pushes her face against his knee. Zayn laughs, but lays back and scoots down the bed so Niall can curl into his side. “Babe, you just slept for like two hours.”

“Shhh,” is Niall’s response, her eyes screwed shut, but when Zayn looks down, he can see the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. He laughs and rolls his eyes, but wraps an arm around her shoulders anyway. Before he can get too comfy, though, her stomach growls again. Niall’s eyes blink open and then she’s sitting up, patting his knee as she slides off the bed. “Alright, Malik, let’s go.”

“How am I meant to keep up with you,” Zayn wonders, winking at her, reaching out and grabbing Niall’s hand when she offers it to him.

They walk around the streets of the small seaside town, Niall leaning against Zayn as they walk, her cheek pressed to the top of his arm and their fingers intertwined.

“There’s no one here,” Niall murmurs, looking into the window of yet another closed shop with a sign on the window reading “Closed for the off season”. “Like a ghost town.”

“It is November,” Zayn says, mimicking Niall’s earlier sentiment and laughing when she grumbles a “shut up” at him. “Here, this looks nice, yeah?”

He leads her into a small diner, opening the door for her and guiding her inside with a hand at the small of her back.

They’re greeted by an older woman when they walk in, who smiles and tells them to “have a seat, sweethearts, I’ll be right with you”. 

They sit and look over the menus on the table until the woman- who introduces herself as Laura- comes over to their table.

“What a lovely pair,” she muses. “What’s a young couple like you doing here in the middle of November? Your lot are usually here in the summer.”

“Just exploring,” Zayn answers, because Niall is looking at him like she doesn’t know what to say, and he very well can’t say ‘Oh, you know, just brought my girlfriend out of town for a bit because her mum is dying and I want her to be happy for a bit before that happens.’

Niall smiles gratefully at him, her legs crossed under the table and her foot nudging at his calf. Laura seems to sense that there’s something they’re avoiding, eyes kind but discerning as she smiles at them, and she returns their attention to their menus with a quick “Right, what will you cuties be eating this morning?”

“She reminds me of my mum,” Niall murmurs when Laura leaves their table to head back to the kitchen and place their order. “Or what my mom would be like, I mean. In a few years.”

Zayn senses the “if she was still here then” that Niall bites back and reaches across the table to cover her hand with his. “Yeah,” he says, squeezing Niall’s hand and ducking his head to catch her eye. “Hey.”

Niall looks up at him then, raising her gaze from the marbled surface of the tabletop, and Zayn can see all of her heartbreak reflected back at him in her eyes, can see everything she’s holding in and holding back, and he wishes there was some way he could fix it, take it all away. She seems to be able to tell what he’s thinking and smiles at him, small and sad, turning her hand over to squeeze his tightly. 

“Hey,” she responds, sighing heavily. She pauses for a second before sliding out of the booth and joining Zayn on his side of the table, picking up his arm and pulling it over her shoulders, tucking herself into his side with her head resting on his shoulder.

Zayn turns his face in to press his lips to Niall’s temple, closing his eyes briefly. When he opens his eyes, he catches Laura’s gaze from across the diner where she’s standing behind the counter. She smiles sadly at him, eyes flickering to Niall, and Zayn nods slightly, answering her unasked question. Laura seems like a kindred spirit, seems to understand without knowing them at all.

After a few minutes, Niall excuses herself to go to the bathroom, pressing a soft kiss to Zayn’s cheek before sliding out from under his arm and making her way across the diner. 

Laura comes over to the booth with their food then, setting the plates down on the table. “I’ve seen that look before,” she starts, and Zayn isn’t surprised at all when she slides into the seat across from him. “On her face. She’s losing someone, isn’t she?”

“Yeah,” Zayn answers, rolling a torn-off piece of his paper napkin in between his thumb and index finger. “Her mum.”

“Oh, honey,” Laura murmurs, resting a hand on her chest, and Zayn just knows that if Niall were at the table right then, Laura would have her wrapped up tight in her arms. “Kids aren’t supposed to outlive their parents. It’s not right.”

“No,” Zayn agrees, and he looks up at Laura when she covers his hand with her own, still his motion where he’s still rolling the little piece of balled up napkin back and forth, back and forth. 

“You’re doing exactly what she needs you to do, sweetheart,” Laura says, squeezing his hand. “I know it doesn’t feel like you are- I know it. But you are, I promise you.”

Zayn realizes that she must have been in this position before, but before he can ask whether she was the one losing a loved one or the one watching it happen, feeling useless and helpless on the sidelines while the one she loved fell apart, Laura pats his hand and slides out of the booth, standing up with a “Well, better get back to my diner, love.”

Niall returns a few moments later, sliding back into the seat across from him. She picks at her breakfast, absentmindedly moving her food around her plate with her fork. 

“Eat, babe,” Zayn reminds gently, nudging her foot with his underneath the table, breaking Niall out of her reverie, and she nods, raising her fork to her mouth and taking a bite of her omelet. 

Laura refuses to let them pay, tearing their bill into shreds when Zayn asks for it. She sends them off with hugs and kisses on the cheeks, and Zayn feels like they’ve known her for all of their lives and not just for the hour they spent in her diner.

\---

It starts raining as they’re walking back from the diner, and so they head back to the motel, and that’s where they spend the rest of the weekend- holed up in their small room, curled up under the covers, only venturing out for walks on the beach in between rain storms and for trips out for food. 

“You’re pretty,” Niall says from where she’s pinned underneath Zayn’s frame, reaching up to cup his jaw in her palm, running her thumb lightly over his bottom lip, swollen and plump from a morning of kissing. “Look at these lips, how even.”

“Stop it, you’ll make me blush,” Zayn responds, feigning coy. He flutters his eyelashes at her and reveling in Niall’s giggling. He ducks his head then, rubbing his stubbly cheek against the sensitive skin of her neck. Niall shrieks and wriggles under him, trying to push his head away from her neck; Zayn just redoubles his efforts, dropping a hand to her waist and tickling at her ribs lightly. 

“No,” Niall chokes out through a laugh. “No, nonono, Z-”

Zayn doesn’t let up, though, his own laughter bubbling in his chest as Niall laughs freely, writhing beneath him and trying fruitlessly to push him off of her. 

He relents after a few minutes, rolling off of Niall and onto his side next to her. He looks at Niall then, takes in the flush of her cheeks and the way her eyes shine, and it makes his heart soar to see her smiling freely and openly at him. 

“Oh my god,” she says, resting a hand flat on her stomach, chest still heaving as she tries to catch her breath. “I haven’t laughed that hard in ages.”

Zayn just nods in response, reaching out to brush Niall’s hair off of her face. He doesn’t tell her how much he’s missed her smile, doesn’t want her to think about anything other than the happy she’s feeling right now- she’s got too much on her mind lately, is too worried, too preoccupied, and it’s nice to see her laugh again. 

“C’mere,” Niall murmurs, rolling onto her side and closing the distance between them, pushing up just enough to press her lips against Zayn’s in a quick, soft kiss. Zayn drops his hand to the back of her neck, fingers threaded into the hair at her nape and holding her there, deepening the kiss. 

“Thanks for this,” Niall says a moment later, pulling back just enough to murmur against Zayn’s lips. 

Zayn just tugs her back into him to kiss her again in lieu of a response, instead telling her you’re welcome and I’m sorry and I love you through the press of his lips on hers. 

Niall smiles against his mouth, sliding an arm over his shoulder and pushing against him until he’s on his back and she’s on top of him, knees bracketing him on both sides and their chests and torsos and hips pressed together.

“Oh, hello,” Zayn murmurs, running a light fingertip across Niall’s cheekbone, catching the hair that’s hanging down and pushing it back behind her ear.

“Hiii,” Niall drawls, lazy smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. 

Zayn cups her cheek in his palm and Niall nuzzles against it, turns her face in and presses a kiss just above his wrist.

“Get back down here, yeah?” Zayn says, and it sounds like a question, but it’s not, and Niall smiles as she leans back down, ghosting her lips over Zayn’s in a feather-light kiss before slanting her mouth over his and kissing him properly, tongue slipping past his lips when he opens his mouth under hers.

(They spend the rest of the day in bed, kissing and laughing and napping on and off, and it’s so familiar, it’s nothing new, but it’s what they love- mapping each other out, hands taking familiar routes across backs and down sides and over thighs, lips pressing together softly and tongues meeting with ease in a way that comes from being together for so long, for knowing each other as intimately as they do.

Niall drifts off as they’re watching Monsters, Inc on the small, staticky television in the corner of the room late that night. Zayn follows soon after, spooned up behind her, arm wrapped round her middle and head resting on the pillow beside hers.)

\--- 

When Zayn wakes, he’s alone in the hotel bed.

He finds Niall outside, leaning against the railing and watching the waves crash over and over onto the shore.

“Couldn’t sleep again?” Zayn asks, stepping behind Niall. He reaches around her and covers her hands with his own on the wood of the railing, tucking his chin over her shoulder.

Niall sighs and relaxes back into him, slipping her hands out from under his so she can grab his wrists and pull his arms snugly around her middle. “Yeah. Didn’t want to wake you with my tossing and turning,” she says quietly, turning her head enough to nudge her forehead against Zayn’s temple.

Zayn tucks his face into her neck and murmurs “You not being there wakes me up, too.”

“Sor-“

“Don’t be,” he cuts her off. Niall never used to apologize for waking him up, would just flick him on the nose and tell him that since he was awake, the least he could do was make her breakfast (and he would, of course he would), but now she’s quieter, more timid, like she’s afraid anything she does, one wrong move, will send the ground crumbling beneath her feet. “Wake me up next time, yeah?”

Niall nods and sinks back into him, curling her fingers lightly around his wrist again and raising his hand to kiss across his knuckles.

The small action sets a lump in Zayn’s throat, and he squeezes his arm still around Niall’s waist tighter, hugging her to him and holding her close.

They stay like that for a while, watching the waves come and go in the gray light of the early morning. Niall relaxes against him more and more as time passes, and when sky is lightening, casting the beach in a dark gray, Niall squeezes his hand and murmurs “bed?”

Zayn nods and leads them back inside, closing the blinds as Niall climbs into the bed; she’s asleep by the time he slips in beside her, pulling the comforter up and curling around her frame, his chest to her back and an arm around her waist.

When Zayn blinks awake a few hours later, it’s still kind of dark out, the room cast the light gray of the early morning. Niall is still lying beside him, propped up on an elbow with her head in her hand. The TV is on, volume low, and Zayn hears her laugh softly as she watches—

“Are you watching SpongeBob?”

“Don’t judge me,” is Niall’s answer, and turns her attention to him. “It’s a weakness.”

Zayn snorts and rubs at his eye, turning onto his back and opening his arms. Niall scoots in wordlessly, snuggling into his side, and sighs contentedly as Zayn rubs a hand across her back. 

“You slept some, right?”

He feels Niall nod against his chest. “Yeah, I just woke up.”

“That’s good,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to the top of her head before settling back into the pillows. “You needed it.”

“Yeah,” Niall agrees quietly.

He must drift off again after that, because when he wakes again, it’s no longer dark outside, the room encased in the light pink glow of an early morning sunset. Niall is at the foot of the bed, bent over and tugging on her sneakers.

“Where y’going?” Zayn mumbles, rubbing at his eye with one hand. “S’early still.”

“Can’t sleep anymore,” Niall explains. “Gonna call mum, she’s got an early appointment this morning, then I’m gonna go for a run.”

She walks to the side of the bed then, dropping to sit next to Zayn. She reaches out, carding her fingers through the strands of hair flopping messily on his forehead, and leans down to kiss him softly. “Go back to sleep, babe.”

Zayn doesn’t have to be told twice, burrowing back under the scratchy motel comforter and falling asleep quickly. 

When he wakes some time later, the sun is up and shining brightly through the window. He yawns and shifts onto his back, stretching his arms over his head. He hears the shower running in the bathroom, and over the sound of the water spraying on tile, he can hear Niall humming softly.

Niall jumps when he joins her, stepping into the shower quietly and alerting her of his presence with his arms wrapped around her middle from behind. 

“Oi,” Niall says, startled at the sudden contact. “What have I said about sneaking up on me, you prat?”

“How was your run?” Zayn asks, ignoring her question and ducking to tuck his chin over her shoulder, chuckling sleepily when she reaches back to flick him on the forehead.

“It was good,” Niall answers after a moment, dropping her hands to rest on Zayn’s forearms and leaning back against him, her back to his chest. “Needed to clear my head a bit.”

“Yeah,” Zayn murmurs, because although he’s never been one for running- any athletics at all, really- Niall has always used it as an outlet, an escape, taking off with her iPod and her earbuds whenever she needs some time alone, and she’s been running constantly lately- heading out early in the morning or in the afternoon when she’s done with class.

(He’d had to put a ban on the middle of the night runs when he’d woken up at 1 am to find Niall not in bed and unable to find her anywhere in the flat; he’d been nearly out of his mind with worry and three seconds from calling the police when Niall had pushed open the door, tugging her headphones from her ears and flushed with sweat from an hour long run.)

He knows that she needs that time, the time she uses to tune everything out, to turn up her music and just run.

Niall turns in his arms to face him then, reaching up to wrap her arms around his shoulders; Zayn ducks down to bury his face in the junction of her neck, sighing happily when Niall scratches her nails through the hair at the base of his skull.

“And Lou says Haz is easy when it comes to his hair,” Niall remarks, and Zayn can see the smile on her face.

“Yeah, yeah,” Zayn mumbles, enjoying it far too much to defend himself. “Whatever.”

Niall snorts out a laugh and then, tugging lightly on his hair and ducking down, she murmurs a soft “hey”, nudging at the side of Zayn’s jaw with her nose until he leans his head back up. Their lips meet softly, and Niall bites lightly at Zayn’s bottom lip, tugging it in between her teeth before letting it go with a pop, chasing it with another quick peck. She pulls back, her lips barely brushing over Zayn’s- he makes a noise of discontent in the back of her throat at her teasing, and Niall feels his hands at her hips, fingers digging in and tugging her in even closer. She grins as he leans back up, using his head to his advantage and towering over her, eyes flashing, and shifts them back; she gasps when her back hits the cold tile of the shower wall.

“Mean,” she murmurs, pouting up at him, but uses the hand still at the back of Zayn’s neck to pull him back down to her.

“I think you’ll get over it,” Zayn cheeks, closing the distance between them and slanting his mouth over Niall’s. Her lips part under his almost immediately, and she makes a quiet little noise in the back of her throat when Zayn’s tongue slips past her lips, stroking over her own; his hands grip her hips, his thumbs rubbing absently at her hip bones as he kisses her. Niall’s hands move up to cup Zayn’s cheeks, her thumbs stroking over his cheekbones and her fingertips brushing just behind his ears. 

Niall shivers and Zayn steps in even closer; she has to tilt her head to accommodate, the angle of the kiss changing, and Zayn raises a hand to cup the back of Niall’s neck as he licks into her mouth.

“Hmm,” Niall says when Zayn pulls away slightly, easing back and peppering soft, often-mouthed kisses to her lips. “Yeah. I think I’ll get over it.”

Zayn drops his forehead to Niall’s shoulder, muffling a quiet laugh into her neck. The hand not resting at her neck shifts up to rest just below Niall’s ribs, and with her hand in Zayn’s hair again, Niall tugs gently, pulling him up and then they’re kissing again.

They kiss slowly, lazily, until the water starts to run cold. Zayn yelps and Niall laughs as she turns off the shower, following him out of the shallow tub and accepting the towel he hands her, wrapping it around her body and securing it quickly. 

“Are you ogling me?” Zayn asks, catching Niall’s eye in the mirror. Niall just shrugs a shoulder and lets her eyes drop from Zayn’s face to his chest, unabashedly giving him a once-over.

“What can I say,” she starts, turning to hop up on the bathroom counter, grabbing her brush and combing through her hair. “My boyfriend is a babe. Totally ogle-able.”

“Oh, really,” Zayn responds, shifting over to step in front of Niall. He nudges her knee with his hip and steps in between her legs, his hands smoothing up the top of her thighs and slipping under the edge of her towel. 

“Yeah, really,” Niall says softly,reaching up with one hand to cup Zayn’s cheek. “And sweet, too.”

“Sounds like he’s a keeper,” Zayn murmurs, pushing in close and pressing their foreheads together. 

“Yeah, I think I might keep him around. Depends, though,” Niall says, smirking as she wraps her arms around Zayn’s shoulders and hooks an ankle around the back of his knee. “He’s a sneaky thing, always scaring the shit outta me.”

Zayn just laughs and presses a kiss to Niall’s mouth (it’s not really a kiss, since neither of them can stop smiling, but it’s them and they love every second of it). 

“Y’know what would really make him a keeper,” Niall muses, pulling back to look up at Zayn, eyes glinting mischievously. She drops a hand to slip two fingers into the front of Zayn’s towel where it’s knotted at his hips, tugging lightly.

“Hm?” Zayn mumbles, squeezing Niall’s thighs. 

“If he’d take me to bed right now,” Niall responds, tapping the fingers of her free hand along Zayn’s collarbone with the pronunciation of each word.

“Oh, really,” Zayn says, smirking. He pretends to consider it, shrugging a shoulder and feigning indifference towards her proposition.

(His facade is discarded, and fast, when Niall drops her hand to palm at his crotch quickly, her tongue darting out to lick at the corner of her mouth as she grins wickedly up at him, fingers cupping his length through the material of his towel.)

(She squeals when Zayn throws her over his shoulder and carries her back into the bedroom, murmuring “excellent decision, love,” when Zayn sets her on the mattress and crawls on top her, covering her body with his own and settling against her.)

(“Ogle-able isn’t a word,” Zayn remembers belatedly, mumbling the words against Niall’s lips, and Niall laughs into their kiss, dropping her head back onto the pillow and looking up at him, eyes bright and shining and happy, and Zayn wants to remember this moment forever.)

\---

They get home late Monday night, dropping their bags at the door and collapsing into bed.

Niall’s hair smells like the salty beach air they’d spent the weekend in, and Zayn can feel sand in his socks (all over himself, really), but Niall is smiling as she slides under the covers and into his arms, bags under her eyes smaller and less visible than they have been in months, and that’s all that matters.

(He’ll get the sand out of his toes in the morning.)

Niall is startled awake early the next morning by her cell phone ringing shrilly.

“The hell-“ she grumbles, leaning over Zayn’s still sleeping form to fumble blindly in her bag, which is sitting on the floor at the side of the bed, for her phone. “I swear to God, if this is Louis calling to tell me about a new spot she found on Harry’s dick, I will light her hair on fire. No. No. I’ll light Harry’s hair on fire. That will hurt her more.”

Zayn snorts out a laugh, followed by a yawn, and shifts onto his back. 

(It’s always fun to watch Niall tell Louis off, mainly because she doesn’t actually mean a word of what she says.) 

“Poor Harry,” he says sleepily.

Niall finds her phone then and sits up, answering the call with a “It is six o’clock in the morning, is this really-“

She cuts off then, and when Zayn opens his eyes again, he sees that all of the color has drained from her face.

“Greg?” Niall asks, running a hand through her hair and pushing the strands off of her face. “Greg, what is it?”

“Niall,” Greg says, voice quiet. “Ni. It’s Mum, she- she’s gone.”


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life is at a turning point for Niall- she's graduating, getting ready to start university, and she feels like she's got the world in the palm of her hand- and the best part is that she gets to begin this new stage of her life with her Zayn and their three best mates by her side.
> 
> Life throws her a curveball, though, and instead of spending the summer with her boyfriend and her friends, she ends up on a red-eye flight back to Ireland. It's hard enough being away from Zayn and the others, but when coupled with the reason for her leaving in the first place, the trip starts to drain her of her energy. She returns completely drained and waiting for the other shoe to drop.
> 
> When it does, Zayn, along with their friends, are there to help her pick up the pieces of her now shattered world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for my 2012-2013 big bang, originally posted 02-28-13 on my lj!
> 
> disclaimer: i made this up no harm was meant insert standard disclaimer here

The day of the funeral dawns before any of them are ready for it, and Niall’s hands shake as she accepts the cup of tea Zayn hands her.

She’s sitting on a chair in the kitchen of her mum’s house, her legs tucked up underneath her as she stares vacantly at the white of the refrigerator. Zayn had found her there before the sun was even up, sitting quietly in the dark, her chin resting on her knees and her arms wrapped tightly around her legs.

“C’mon, Ni,” he says quietly after a few moments, taking Niall’s hand in his and coaxing her up. “Let’s go get a shower, yeah?”

Niall nods but stays silent as she follows Zayn up the stairs to her old room, where they’ve been staying since they arrived two days prior. She drops to sit on the edge of the bed as Zayn walks into the bathroom; she hears the water come on, the sound of the shower curtain being pulled to, and then Zayn is back in front of her, pressing a kiss to her forehead and guiding her up with a hand at her waist.

She follows him into the bathroom, raising her arms when he makes to pull her sweater over her head and stepping out of her pajama bottoms when he tugs them down her legs.

“Thanks,” she says quietly, her voice hoarse and scratchy and thick from two days of barely saying anything.

Zayn stands then and raises his hands to cup her cheeks, leaning in and pressing a feather light kiss just under her eye.

“C’mon,” he says after a moment. He drops one last kiss to her cheek before taking her hand in his and walking her over to the shower, guiding her in with a hand at the small of her back.

Niall stays still as he sets about soaping her up, running a cloth over her skin gently, lifting her arm with his fingers at her wrist and guiding her under the spray with a hand at her hip. When he tilts her head back under the spray of water with a finger under her chin, getting her hair wet and starting to lather up her scalp with shampoo, she’s suddenly overwhelmed by how much she loves the boy in front of her, how much she needs him, how she can’t even imagine trying to get through this without him.

Before she realizes it or can stop it, her eyes are stinging and her nose is burning and she’s crying, face crumpling as tears stream down her cheeks.

“Oh, Ni,” Zayn murmurs, his heart breaking for her for what has to be the thousandth time, and he finishes rinsing the suds out of her hair before pulling her into his arms, tucking her against his chest and holding her tight. “I’m so sorry, love. I’m so sorry.”

\---

“Hey, love,” Zayn says, knocking quietly on Niall’s door. “You ready?”

“No,” Niall answers from where she’s standing in front of her mirror, and Zayn knows she’s not talking about being dressed. “Not really.”

“C’mere,” Zayn murmurs, walking across the room to stand behind Niall. He stills her hands where she’s trying to reach behind herself and pull up the zipper of her dress, doing up her zipper himself before wrapping an arm around her middle and pulling her to him, molding himself against her back and resting his chin on her shoulder. “Hey.” She meets his gaze in the mirror, and Zayn hates how much sadness he sees there, how many sleepless nights he sees in the dark circles there, and how many tears shed he sees in the redness, the puffiness of her eyes. “You know I love you, right?”

(Because he does, and because he doesn’t want Niall to ever forget that he’s there.)

“I know,” Niall replies quietly after a moment. She places her hands on Zayn’s forearms and squeezes, and Zayn knows it’s her saying she loves him too. “Um. Are the others here?”

“They’re downstairs,” Zayn answers, and Niall nods. Her eyes slip closed, her bottom lip tucked between her teeth, and Zayn feels her try to take in a big breath. “Hey. It’s good they’re here, yeah?” He knows that Niall is worried about the others seeing her like this, seeing her vulnerable and sad- she can barely handle letting Zayn see this side of her, and he knows that she’s trying to prep herself, get herself ready for when they’ll go downstairs, make herself into the Niall they’re used to, the one she thinks that they want her to be. “They love you too, you know,” Zayn speaks after a moment, reassuring her, and Niall lets out a breath she probably wasn’t even aware she’d been holding in.

“Yeah,” is all Niall says in response, turning in Zayn’s arms so that she can slip her arms around his waist, tucking her head under his chin, her face pressed into his chest. When she speaks, her words are muffled in the material of his dress shirt. “But can we just stay here for a bit? Before we go down?”

“Absolutely, Ni,” Zayn whispers, pressing his lips to the top of her head and holding her close. “Absolutely.”

Eventually, Niall takes a big, steadying breath, leaning back to stand upright. “Right,” she says. “Suppose I can’t avoid it forever, yeah?” She offers Zayn a small, forced (and very unconvincing) smile, turning back to take one last quick look in the mirror. “Right,” she repeats, smoothing out the bottom of her dress with the palms of her hands. “Here we go.”

She holds tightly to Zayn’s hand as they make their way downstairs, and she can’t help but brace herself as they turn the corner into the kitchen, where Liam, Harry, and Louis are waiting.

(It’s not that she doesn’t want to see them, doesn’t want them to be there- she absolutely wants them there, needs them there even. It’s just. Li keeps giving her these pitiful little looks, sad and sympathetic, and Louis keeps trying to smother her with hugs, almost like she’s trying to squeeze the sadness out of her. Harry’s the only one, other than Zayn, who seems to understand that what she needs isn’t hundreds and hundreds of I’m sorry’s or sympathetic pats on the shoulder, but for him to be himself around her, let her be in her head and just know that they’ll be there for her when she finally comes out.)

Harry, bless him, seems to read her mind like he usually does, and as soon as she and Zayn walk into the kitchen, he’s out of his seat and gathering her into his arms. Niall sinks into his embrace easily, wrapping her arms around his waist and holding tight.

“Hi,” Harry says quietly, ducking down, his nose brushing against her ear as he speaks. “I missed you, bud.”

“Yeah,” Niall replies. “You too.” She twists her fingers in the material of his jacket, closing her eyes and letting him hug her; she hears the scrape of chair legs on the kitchen tile, and the shuffle of feet, and she chokes up when she feels the others surround her and realizes they’ve joined in on their hug, pressing in close and wrapping her up tight in one massive tangle of limbs.

They break apart when someone clears their throat, and Niall turns around to see Greg standing in the doorway, fingers fumbling with his tie.

“Here, let me,” she says and makes her way over to him. Her fingers shake as she does it up, looping the fabric and pulling it through the knot she’s formed.

(She’d learned how to tie ties when she and her dad had moved to England- her mum had always done them up for him and he was absolute rubbish at doing it himself, so she’d looked it up online and taught herself so he could look halfway decent for his job interviews.)

“Thanks, Ni,” Greg says when she’s finished, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear as she smooths a hand over the lapel of his jacket. “We should get going, yeah?”

Niall draws in a shuddery breath scrubbing a hand over her face. With her other hand, she reaches behind her; Zayn steps in immediately, pressing his palm to hers and intertwining their fingers. That seems to steady her, and with another shaky breath, she squares her shoulders.

“Yeah,” she says, holding tightly to Zayn’s hand. “I guess so.”

\---

It’s pouring outside when the funeral ends, the sky dark as the rain comes down in sheets.

(Niall is grateful for the rain- it’s soothing, almost, drowning out the sound of all of the women her mother barely knew crying loudly into their tissues behind her, and it hides the stray tears rolling down her own cheeks, the ones she seems to be unable to hold in.)

She takes off down the hill from the church to the cemetery, leaving the procession of funeral goers behind her. It’s cold, her breath visible in puffs in front of her as she comes to a stop in front of the huge, gaping hole in the ground. She stands right on the edge of the hole, arms crossed tight over her middle as she looks down into it. She knows she’s alone, the rest of the procession carefully making their way down the muddy hill, umbrellas held carefully above them.

She hadn’t gone into the viewing portion of the wake or the funeral service, having been unable to stomach the idea of seeing her mum lying there, unmoving and cold. As she stands there, eyes trained on the large, rectangular shaped hole in the ground, she’s hit again with the realization that her mum is gone, that she’s never going to see her again. It overwhelms her, and as hard as she tries, she can’t hold back the sob that wracks her body, her head bowing as she finally lets herself weep openly.

She’s startled when she feels someone’s presence beside her, but then there’s a warm hand encasing hers- she looks over to see Zayn standing there, holding her hand tightly, and she can’t help but start crying again, unable to hold it in any longer. “Zayn, I-.”

“I know, love,” Zayn says, turning to her, cupping her cheek in his free hand and swiping his thumb under her eye. “I know.”

Zayn tugs her to him then, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and holding her close. She’s small, so small in his arms, and he keeps her wrapped up tight as she cries, keeping her shielded from the view of the rest of the funeral goers as they get approach the gravesite.

After a few minutes, Zayn walks them back to where Harry, Louis, and Liam have gathered, waiting a few feet back from the grave and at the front of the group of people waiting for the priest to start the burial. Niall keeps her head tucked against Zayn’s shoulder, one arm around his waist, and offers Liam a watery smile when he steps in beside her, grabbing her free hand and entwining their fingers. Louis joins them, then, stepping behind Niall, and then Niall feels Harry there, too, holding an umbrella over the five of them; as hard as she tries, she can’t hold back the fresh wave of tears, overwhelmed with how much she loves her friends, how much she appreciates them- surrounding her and protecting her and just being there.

She zones out for the rest of the service, watching through teary eyes as her mum’s casket is carried down from the church and lowered into the grave; she does what’s expected of her, shaking hands and accepting kisses on the cheek from people she barely remembers; she hears “I’m sorry” so many times that she think she might scream. There’s an ache in her chest that’s been there since she first found out her mum was ill, but now it’s bigger- growing and growing, pushing against her sternum, and Niall feels like she’s going to shatter from the inside out if it grows any larger.

Eventually, she can’t take anymore hugs and kisses from people telling her how lovely her mum was, how sorry they are for her family’s loss, and with a curt “excuse me”, she slips out from under the umbrella she and Greg have been standing under and takes off, kicking off her heels and running back up the hill to the church.

Liam finds her sitting on the floor in a secluded hallway of the church some time later, knees drawn up to her chest as she sits there.

“Hey,” he says, sliding down to the ground next to her. She hadn’t realized she was shivering, soaking wet and freezing cold, until Liam wraps an arm around her shoulders, warm and somehow still mostly dry.

She curls into his side, chasing his warmth, and nudges her forehead against his jaw. “Hey,” she responds after a minute, rubbing absently at the center of her chest as she leans against Liam. 

“Is everyone gone?”

“Yeah,” Liam answers. “Lou and the guys are waiting out by the door for us.”

“Right.”

“Whenever you’re ready,” Liam adds, rubbing his hand over the top of her arm. “No rush.”

“No, let’s get out of here,” Niall says after a moment. She stands then, offering Liam a hand up. “Can’t really stand to be here any longer, to be honest.”

Liam stands and pulls her into a hug, pressing a quick kiss to her forehead. “Yeah, okay.”

They find the others waiting at the doors of the church, and Niall snorts out a half-hearted laugh when she sees her shoes dangling from Zayn’s fingers.

“Thanks, Z,” she says, reaching out and grabbing them, using a hand on his shoulder to balance herself as she pulls them on. His hand at her waist steadies her, and he ducks down to press a light kiss to the top of her cheekbone, just under her eye, when she gets her shoes back on.

He reaches down to grab Niall’s hand, squeezing lightly when she slides her fingers in between his, guiding her down the front steps of the church.

She zones out on the drive back to the house, knees tucked up to her chest as she looks out the window. She feels something tug at her hair, and a look in the rearview mirror reveals Louis has leaned forward in her seat to comb through the ends of Niall’s hair. She smiles, small and tight, at Louis, and lets her eyes fall closed as Louis plays with the long strands. 

When the car slows to a stop a few minutes later, she opens her eyes to see that Zayn has pulled the car up outside the house. She sees all of the cars there, all of the people climbing out of their cars and piling into her house carrying casseroles and TupperWare containers, and she tenses up, fingers digging into her palm where her hand is curled into a fist.

Zayn leans over and sets a hand on her knee, warm and reassuring, and squeezes to get her attention. “What do you need, Ni?” 

“Um. Can we-” Niall starts. She closes her eyes again, focuses on taking a couple of deep breaths, and when she opens her eyes, she focuses on Zayn’s face, on the feeling of his hand on her knee, and not on the people heading into her house waiting to greet her and her family and tell her all about how much they’ll miss her mum. “Do we have to go in? I know I should, I know I can’t leave Greg, but-”

“Absolutely,” Zayn responds, and he leans over the console to press a kiss to Niall’s temple before settling back behind the wheel and putting the car in drive, pulling away from the curb, and none of them look back as the house gets smaller and smaller behind them as they drive away.

“Thank you,” she says, voice small, and she covers Zayn’s hand with hers where it’s resting on her leg.

(They drive around for hours, Zayn navigating the car through the rain in a town that he’s barely familiar with, but Niall is breathing properly again as she looks out the window, her hand squeezing Zayn’s periodically, and if this is what she needs, then this is what he’ll give her.)

(Eventually, Louis’ stomach growls loudly from the backseat, followed closely by Harry’s, and- “Jesus, you two even get hungry at the same time?” Niall mutters, chuckling under her breath, and they’re all relieved to hear it- Zayn pulls over, finding an out of the way pub that doesn’t seem to be too crowded. They pile in and find a table and spend the afternoon there, watching the footy game that’s broadcasting on the television hanging over the bar and most definitely not talking about the funeral.)

\-----

Two days after they bury her mum, Greg drives Zayn and Niall to the airport. Harry, Louis, and Liam had left the day prior, wanting to give Niall some space and needing to get back to prepare for their exams.

“You ready, babe?” Zayn asks, squeezing Niall’s hand where it rests in his when a voice comes over the loudspeaker and announces that their flight is now boarding.

“Yeah,” Niall responds, taking a steadying breath. She drops Zayn’s hand then and throws herself into her brother’s arms, holding him tight around the waist and burying her face in his chest.

“Gonna miss you, Ni,” Greg murmurs against Niall’s hair. He pulls back then, his hands on Niall’s shoulders as he looks down at her. “Call me, yeah? Let me know you’re okay.”

Niall nods, and Greg smiles and leans in to drop a kiss to her forehead. “Here,” he says pulling an envelope from his jacket pocket. He holds in in between them, and Niall can see her name written in her mum’s handwriting across the front, small and neat and not much unlike her own. “She wanted me to give you this.”

Niall’s hands shake as she takes the envelope from Greg, and she’s embarrassed to realize that her eyes have welled up, tears burning hot and nose stinging. “Thank you, Greg,” she speaks quietly, her voice thick, and she wraps Greg up in another hug. “Thank you.”

With final hugs and kisses (and Greg whispering a “take care of my sister, please” into Zayn’s ear), Niall and Zayn board their plane. Niall sits silently for the entire flight, her head rested on Zayn’s shoulder as she looks down at the envelope in her hands. She doesn’t open it, not yet, just worries the corner of it with her fingers, traces over the ink that spells out her name in the handwriting she’ll never see again.)

They get home late that night, and Zayn yawns as he drops their bags by the front door. He very nearly cries when he walks into the kitchen and sees that their friends have gone grocery shopping for them, stocking their cabinets so that they won’t have to. 

“Liam even did the dishes, bless,” Zayn says as he pulls a glass from the cabinet, filling in with water and taking a long drink. 

“What did we do to deserve friends like them?” Niall asks from where she’s propped against the doorway of the kitchen. She pads across the kitchen to where Zayn is standing, edge of the countertop digging into the small of his back, and steps in between his legs, wrapping her arms around his middle and resting her chin on his chest, looking up at him. “What’d I do to deserve a guy like you?”

“Oh, Ni,” Zayn says, reaching up to cup Niall’s cheek in his palm. He starts to tell her it’s the complete opposite, that he wonders on a daily basis what strings the universe had to pull to get him her, but Niall just sighs and presses up on her tip-toes, cutting him off with a soft kiss.

“C’mon,” she speaks, voice quiet. “Let’s go to bed, yeah?”

\---

Somehow, Niall makes it through all of her exams and passes all of her courses, despite the fact that she’s completely drained.

It’s almost as though the exams were what was keeping her going, because as soon as she takes her last final, she collapses in Zayn’s bed and just sleeps.

She sleeps- and sleeps, and sleeps, and sleeps- for days, only getting out of bed to use the bathroom and follow Zayn when he leads her into the kitchen and sits her down at the table while he makes her something to eat. 

Zayn knows she’s hiding in her dreams, sleeping to avoid reality, and he knows it can’t be healthy, that it can’t be good for her to just avoid everything, but the only time she doesn’t look like she’s seconds away from breaking into a million pieces is when she’s asleep and so he lets her be, slides into bed beside her and holds her close.

On day five- six?- of Christmas hols, Niall blinks wide awake at three in the morning. The sheets are itchy against her skin and Zayn’s arm is heavy at her waist and the moon is shining brightly through the window and she just can’t get comfortable, tossing and turning and trying to go back to sleep. 

She gives up after an hour, sliding out of bed and walking into the kitchen, flipping on the light and looking around the room.

When Zayn wakes, the sun is barely above the horizon and Niall’s side of the bed is cold.

“Ni?” He calls, slipping out of bed. He pokes his head in the bathroom and down the hall, and his brow furrows when he sees the light from the kitchen flooding into the hallway. “Babe?”

He stops short when he gets to the kitchen and finds Niall standing on top of the kitchen counter, hair thrown up haphazardly and elbows deep in the cabinets, balanced on her tip toes as she scrubs the back of the cupboards. The contents of said cupboards are spread all over the kitchen- pots and pans litter the kitchen counter and the kitchen table is covered with food from the pantry- “What the hell?” Zayn can’t help but wonder out loud, and Niall jumps at the sound, hitting her head on the top of the cabinet. She curses under her breath and turns to look at him, eyes wide and hand at her chest as she tries to catch her breath. Zayn hurries across the kitchen, already spouting apologies as he walks over to Niall, arms extended. He helps her down from the counter with his hands at her hips, murmuring another “sorry” as he pulls her into his arms.

“What are you doing up so early?” Zayn asks after a moment, lips pressed to Niall’s forehead.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Niall explains, shrugging. “So I decided to clean out the cabinets.”

“Oh,” Zayn says. He pushes a stray hair behind Niall’s ear and nods, disentangling their limbs and stepping to where he knows the coffee maker is hidden behind a wall of Tupperware. He uncovers it and plugs it in, reaching blindly to the left to find the container of Folgers. Once the pot starts brewing, he turns to look at Niall, who has started putting the food back into the now freshly scrubbed clean pantry. There’s a rag tugged into the back of the waistband of her pajama bottoms and a smear of dirt- dust? He really should clean more often- just above her right eyebrow. “How can I help?”

Niall turns to look at him, giving him a small, appreciative smile, before reaching back and pulling the rag from her waistband and tossing it to him, pointing him towards the cabinets below the sink. Zayn nods and gets to work, and that’s how they spend their morning- scrubbing every inch of the kitchen clean and reorganizing the cupboards.

(It’s how they the next couple of weeks pass, actually- it’s like a switch has flipped in Niall, and she can’t sleep for more than an hour or two at a time. She’s antsy, fidgeting and itchy in her skin, and Zayn soon gets used to waking up to her side of the bed being cold and some part of his apartment rearranged. They spend the first half of their Christmas holiday holed up and avoiding reality- Zayn knows Niall isn’t ready to go back out yet, can’t yet face a world where she knows her mum isn’t. He can see it in the way she turns her phone over when her screen lights up with a call from Louis, in the way she doesn’t go anywhere near her computer and the way she doesn’t answer Harry’s texts.)

One morning, Zayn wakes up and Niall is on her stomach on the floor in the hallway, painting the baseboards. She’s wearing one of his old painting shirts, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows.

“What’re you-“

“Baseboards were lookin’ a bit grungy. I wiped them down and that sort of helped, but I figured they could use a fresh coat of paint, yeah? I found this in the closet by the front door- which, by the way, has a lot of stuff in it, did you know? I’ll probably tackle that next.”

Zayn crouches down next to Niall and runs his hand over the small of her back where the worn and frayed hem of his shirt is rucked up. “Hey, c’mere?”

Niall pushes herself up, shifting onto her knees and sitting back on her heels. “Yeah?” She asks, wiping the back of her hand across her forehead.

“C’mon,” is all Zayn offers, standing and extending a hand to her. He can tell that she needs to get out of the house, is starting to get cabin fever but is too apprehensive to actually go, and so Zayn makes the decision for her. “Let’s go on a walk.”

“I-“ Niall starts, but Zayn simply takes her hand in his and tugs her up gently. “Yeah. Okay.”

They bundle up, grabbing their coats and scarves from the front closet- which, Niall was right, it has a ton of shit in it- and pulling on their boots before heading outside.

They walk- and walk, and walk, and walk- in silence, hands swinging in between them as they trudge through the snow. They stop on top of a hill in the middle of a park (neither of them are sure exactly where they are, really), and Zayn wraps an arm around Niall’s shoulders when she leans into his side, pressing in close.

“Pretty, innit?” Zayn breathes, taking in the bright white of the snow blanketing the park, only interrupted by the two sets of footprints leading from the entrance up to the top of the hill.

“Yeah,” Niall responds, tilting her head against Zayn’s shoulder. Zayn looks down at her face, takes in the brightness of her cheeks, pink and flushed from the cold, biting wind, and the circles beneath her eyes, bigger and darker than ever before.

“You’re gonna get through this, Ni,” Zayn whispers, ducking to press his lips against Niall’s forehead in a soft kiss. “I know it doesn’t feel like it, but you are.”

Niall’s eyes water at his words, and she purses her lips, trying to keep the tears from spilling over. One does, though, and Zayn ducks his head lower to kiss it away as it rolls down her cheek before he pulls her into a hug, holding her to him tight. 

It’s like she’s finally letting herself encounter all of the feelings she’s been dealing with since the funeral- the sadness and the pain and the grief that she’s been holding in since they got on the plane home all come to a head at once and she finally lets it all go, body wracked with sobs as Zayn holds her in his arms. 

“You’re okay,” Zayn murmurs, lips pressed to her hair, rocking her as she cries. “You’re gonna be okay, love.”

Eventually, her crying subsides, and she laughs wetly, forehead pressed to Zayn’s collarbone. “Well, I’m officially that person from the movies,” she says, voice gravelly from crying. “Crying in the park, what the hell.”

Zayn chuckles, lips still pressed to the top of her head, before running his hands up and down the tops of Niall’s arms. “Needed it, I think. C’mon, let’s get something to eat, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Niall agrees, leaning back and pushing up to kiss Zayn quickly, softly. She knocks her forehead against his chin lightly before stepping back completely, reaching down to take his hand and tangle their fingers together. 

They find a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant that’s just opened for the day, and Zayn is relieved to see that not only is it not very crowded, it’s not overloaded with Christmas decorations, either.

(Niall hasn’t really been too into the Christmas spirit this time around, and if he’s honest, he hasn’t been, either.)

Niall picks at her food when it’s brought to their table, her appetite nonexistent, and it’s something Zayn is used to seeing after the past few months- but this morning it strikes him suddenly as one of the most sad things about it. Niall- his Niall- who always ran at life head on, who jumped in without hesitation and who defied every single stereotype she ever encountered, is sitting across from him, legs crossed under her as she pushes her food around her plate, unable to enjoy it, pale and small and so, so fragile. 

“Eat something, Ni,” Zayn coaxes gently, and it’s such a familiar routine by now- he reminds her that the food on her plate is edible and that she needs to eat something, and then she looks up and smiles at him, small and sad, before taking a few bites of whatever is on her plate.

When they get back to the flat, cheeks red and noses numb, there’s a familiar car parked outside by the curb.

“Stop breaking and entering into my apartment, I swear to God,” Zayn calls when they trudge back up the stairs and walk inside.

“Sorry-” they hear Louis’ voice call back from the kitchen. “No, sorry, actually, I take that back. I’m not sorry. I wanted to see you two before I leave with mum and the girls for Gramps’ house, goddammit, and I am most definitely not sorry.”

Niall and Zayn have reached the kitchen then, and they find Louis sitting atop the counter, arms crossed and pouting petulantly at them. Harry is sitting at the table and Liam is pacing the length of the kitchen nervously, and Niall visibly tenses when she sees them all.

Liam sees her tense up and immediately opens his mouth to apologize, stopping still in his tracks. “I’m sorry, I tried to stop her, I told her we should have called- oof.”

He’s cut off when Niall all but flings herself at him, closing the distance between them in three long strides and hugging her arms around his shoulders tight, her face buried in his neck. After a second, the shock wears off, and Liam settles into the hug, wrapping his arms around her waist and hugging her back.

It doesn’t take long for Liam to realize that Niall is crying, the collar of his shirt wet against his neck where her tears are soaking through it. “Ni, don’t cry,” he says, rubbing a hand across her back. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think-”

“No, no,” Niall says after a minute, and when she pulls back to look up at him, there’s a smile on her face. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Yeah?” Liam asks, and Niall nods, tears- happy ones, at that- still streaming down her cheeks, because she is happy they’re there. and throws herself at him again, this time squeezing her arms around his middle and tucking her head under his chin.

“Hey, I want a hug,” Louis pipes up from the countertop. “I am the one who broke us in here, after all- I missed my Ni too, y’know.”

Niall lets Liam go and smiles when she sets her sights on Louis, who has her arms extended and is making grabby hands at her. She walks over to Louis and steps into her arms, laughing when Louis no only wraps her arms around her, but her legs, too, squeezing Niall tight with her entire body.

“Fuckin’ koala,” Niall mutters, voice muffled where she’s got a mouthful of Louis’ shoulder. “Geroff me.”

“Never!” Louis responds, but pulls back just enough so that she can reach up and smoosh Niall’s cheeks in her hands. “Don’t ever do that again, y’hear?”

Niall nods, leaning up and pressing her forehead to Louis’, and when she speaks, it’s just a whisper. “I won’t, Lou. Missed you.”

“Same, babe,” Louis murmurs. After a second, she releases Niall from her grip, pushing her lightly towards where Harry is standing, waiting not so patiently for his turn. “Not as much as this fool, though- thought he was going into withdrawal or something without you.”

Harry all but throws himself at her, bent nearly double over her smaller frame as he hugs her, long limbs wrapped around her body and holding her close. “New rule,” he whispers, and it tickles where his lips brush her ear. “You have to answer at least three out of every fifteen text messages I send you, kapeesh? Even if it’s just a “yeah” or a “k” or a “fuck you, leave me alone.””

Niall snorts at that, fingers pulling at the material of the t-shirt Harry’s wearing as he hugs her.

(And hugs her, and hugs her, and hugs her some more, only letting go-reluctantly, at that- when Louis reminds him that he’s supposed to be in a car with his mum and Robin already, heading to his aunt and uncle’s to spend Christmas with all of his cousins.)

When they’ve all exchanged another round of hugs and Liam, Louis, and Harry have all left, Niall walks into the living room and collapses on the couch. It’s only ten in the morning, but she’s exhausted- physically and emotionally- from long days of no sleep and from finally facing everything she’d been keeping buried for weeks. 

She shifts down the length of the couch, laying on her back and opening her arms to Zayn when he walks into the room; he catches on immediately, climbing carefully on top of her and laying down, his body a familiar, reassuring weight over hers.

“Thanks, Z,” she murmurs after a moment, arms wrapped around his shoulders and fingers scratching absently through the short hairs as the base of his skull, and Zayn knows without her saying it that’s she’s talking about how he got her out of the house, pulled her outside and helped her get one small step closer to facing the world, bringing her closer and closer to facing everything she’s kept pent up since her mum had died. 

\---

Christmas is spent with the Maliks, and although Niall isn’t very excited about it- it’s the first Christmas she won’t be spending with her mum, after all, won’t be spending it making eggnog and watching ridiculously cheesy Christmas movies with her head in her mum’s lap while she cards her fingers through her hair- she plasters a smile on her face and tries her best to fake her way through it. She doesn’t want to ruin Christmas for Zayn’s family, after all, especially not for his younger sisters, and so she tries her hardest to keep up her spirits while they’re there, laughing when everyone else does and doing her best to participate in the conversations going on around her.

Zayn sees her though, sees right through her act and reminds her that he’s there with a warm hand on her knee at the dinner table or a quick press of his lips to her temple while they’re playing board games, whispering into her ear when she zones out and misses the question on her turn. 

On Christmas morning, Niall follows Zayn downstairs, accepting the coffee he hands her with a grateful smile and curling up beside him on the couch to watch as the Present Opening begins. His dad orchestrates, making the girls giggle as he hands the presents out one by one, and it’s nice to see a family together on Christmas, Niall thinks to herself, nice to see them enjoying the time together. As she watches though, she realizes more and more that she’ll never have that again- have her mum taking pictures of her and Greg posed by the fireplace, have the small handmade ornaments her mum made for her each year and gave to her as a gift to remember the previous twelve months by- and it all becomes too much, too overwhelming to think about.

“‘Scuse me,” she mutters as she stands abruptly, leaving the room in a rush. It’s not until she’s out on the back porch, sitting on the top step, that she can breathe properly again, and she closes her eyes and focuses on that- in for three, out for six, in for four, out for eight, the air cold on her nose. She’s shivering, but she doesn’t realize it, just sits out on the porch in her pajamas and watches as fresh snow falls and covers the ground. 

She’s not sure how long she’s been out there when she hears the screen door creak open behind her; she turns to look over her shoulder and sees Zayn’s mum walking towards her, pulling her jacket tight around her and carrying one for Niall, too. 

She sits next to Niall on the step, throwing the jacket over her shoulders and letting her arm rest there, pulling Niall into her so Niall can rest her head on her shoulder, and she tears up again when she feels Trisha press a kiss to the top of her head.

“It’s okay to be sad, y’know,” Trisha says after a moment, squeezing the top of Niall’s arm lightly. “You don’t have to pretend, love. Not with us, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Niall responds, voice small, quiet, and she can’t understand how she managed to surround herself with such wonderful people, how she has such amazing friends that even their families care this much about her, too. 

\---

The weeks following Christmas pass by in a blur (lunch dates with Louis and video game sessions with Liam and going to the record store with Harry, small little outings that help her get back into the swing of things), and next thing Niall knows, it’s Zayn’s birthday.

“Happy birthday, Zayner,” Niall sing-songs as she walks back into the bedroom the morning of his birthday, carrying a muffin with a candle stuck in the top of it and a glass of orange juice. “C’mon, wake up.”

Zayn rolls over onto his back and rubs at his eyes, smirking when he blinks his eyes open and takes in Niall’s appearance. She’s wearing one of his big, baggy v-necks, collarbones exposed, and it falls off of her left shoulder when she leans down to set the plate and glass on the nightstand. Her hair falls loosely over one shoulder and Zayn’s not entirely sure if she’s wearing pants or not-

“Up,” she prompts, and Zayn scoots so he’s sitting up, leaning against the headboard and watching as she pushes up onto the mattress, swinging a leg over his hip and settling onto his lap and nope, she’s definitely not wearing any pants. 

“Can it be my birthday everyday?” Zayn asks, hands flat as they skim up the tops of her thighs, slipping under the hem of the t-shirt to grip her hips. “Getting woken up like this is the best.”

Niall rolls her eyes but leans down nonetheless, bracing herself with her hands flat on Zayn’s torso as she ducks her head to kiss him. 

“You’d be 85 in no time,” she says when they separate, wrinkling her nose at him. “And I don’t date old farts, sorry.”

“Ah, shit,” Zayn murmurs, lifting a hand to cup Niall’s neck, thumb stroking over her cheekbone and fingers brushing the back of her head. “Guess I’ll have to wait my turn, then.”

“Yeah, you better,” Niall answers, words barely leaving her mouth before she’s kissing Zayn again, parting her lips and sucking his top lip in between her own.

They spend the day in bed- per Zayn’s “birthday wish”- trading lazy kisses and cheeky touches, watching cartoons and taking naps and only leaving the bed to go to the bathroom or to get more food.

They go out that night, with Harry and Louis and Liam- it’s the first time they’ve gone out as a group since the before Maura’s funeral, and Zayn can tell that Niall is nervous, that she’s not sure how to readapt to this setting just yet.

She sticks to Zayn’s side most of the night, tucked under his arm as they sit at a table in the bar, but she’s smiling and laughing along with them as they talk, sharing drinks and telling stories over the music that’s playing loudly.

“What an idiot,” Niall murmurs as Louis drags Liam out to dance, refusing to let him go out of spite after Harry’d told Louis that Liam said she’d stepped on his toes at his sister’s wedding the previous summer, and Niall laughs when she sees Louis “accidentally” step on Liam’s foot not even two seconds into the song. “Oh my God.”

Harry laughs outright when he sees it, too, shaking his head at Louis’ ways but smiling fondly at her from where he sits across from Niall and Zayn. 

“You’ve created a monster,” Niall says to Harry, and starts to laugh again when she sees Liam trying to make multiple escapes back to their table.

It’s nice having them all back together again, and Zayn relishes the way they orbit around each other, falling back into a rhythm they’ve always had. It’s nice, he thinks, that their group is finally starting to feel whole again, and as cheesy as it sounds, it’s probably the best birthday present he could think of.

(That and the incredible sex he and Niall had had that morning, that is.)

He’s broken out of his thoughts when he hears Niall laugh loudly- he’s not sure what happened, but her eyes are alight with joy and she’s clapping her hands as she laughs; it’s the first time Zayn’s seen her laugh like this- without hesitation- and mean it since her mum had died, and he knows, of course he knows, that she’s still got a long road ahead of her- but right now she’s laughing, eyes bright and smile wide, and she’s happy, and he knows that she's going to be okay.


	4. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life is at a turning point for Niall- she's graduating, getting ready to start university, and she feels like she's got the world in the palm of her hand- and the best part is that she gets to begin this new stage of her life with her Zayn and their three best mates by her side.
> 
> Life throws her a curveball, though, and instead of spending the summer with her boyfriend and her friends, she ends up on a red-eye flight back to Ireland. It's hard enough being away from Zayn and the others, but when coupled with the reason for her leaving in the first place, the trip starts to drain her of her energy. She returns completely drained and waiting for the other shoe to drop.
> 
> When it does, Zayn, along with their friends, are there to help her pick up the pieces of her now shattered world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for my 2012-2013 big bang, originally posted 02-28-13 on my lj!
> 
> disclaimer: i made this up no harm was meant insert standard disclaimer here

Niall wakes up to the sun glaring through a crack in the blinds and groans, stretching lazily and rubbing at her eyes; Zayn is still passed out cold, curled around her side, his arm thrown around her middle. His breath tickles her ear where his chin is hooked over her shoulder.

She pulls the sleeves of Zayn’s old, ratty jumper (that she absolutely loves and would never really throw away, no matter how many times she tells Zayn it has too many holes and paint stains when he tries to take it back from her so he can wear it when he goes down to his studio) down over her hands and maneuvers carefully out of Zayn’s cuddle; Zayn tightens his arm around her briefly but he doesn’t wake up, snoring softly, and with a soft kiss to his forehead, Niall slips out of the bed. 

She finds a pair of Zayn’s boxers and pulls them up her legs before tying her long hair up on top of her head, too tired and too hungry to deal with trying to brush the knots out of it. 

Niall groans when she opens the refrigerator door and sees that they have no food, gasping when arms wrap around her waist from behind. 

"S'wrong?" Zayn mumbles sleepily, molding himself to her back at nosing at the top of her spine, where a small leprechaun tattoo rests (she was drunk, okay, and missing Ireland and she doesn't even fucking remember anything except shouting "pints!" and a small red headed man who she really wanted to liken to a little leprechaun.)

(She’s been meaning to get it covered, but she's not sure what to cover it with, and it really shouldn't be that hard to decide considering she was drunk off her ass when she got it, it’s not like the thing has any sentimental value, thank you.)

(Except it sort of does, even if it’s just a stupid reminder of home.)

"Jesus," she says, turning in Zayn’s arms to punch at his shoulder. "Sneaky fucker, how many times have I told you to cough or something, give me some warning-"

Niall yelps when Zayn slips his hand down the back of her-his- boxers to pinch at her ass, but she's smiling when she jabs at his chest with her pointer finger. 

"You treat all your girls like they're just objects?" Niall asks as Zayn not so subtly palms at her ass.

"Of course," Zayn cheeks, and next thing she knows, she's sitting atop the counter next to the fridge, one of Zayn’s hands curled round her hip and one cupping the back of her neck. 

It’s this thing they do, pretend like they don’t know they’re each other's everything, and Niall smiles as she curls her fingers into Zayn’s collar and tugs him down so she can tilt her face up and press a kiss to his lips. 

"Morning," she says when she pulls back, dropping another kiss to the bow of his top lip. "We have no food."

"Yeah, you were complaining about that last night when we got back," Zayn replies, tucking his face down into Niall's neck. Niall slides her fingers into his dark hair, scratching lightly at the back of his head, and Zayn laughs when her stomach growls.

"Well, you should have fed me," Niall grumbles. "Distracting me with sex so you don’t have to feed your girlfriend. Jerk."

"I’m sorry, I don’t remember you complaining then," Zayn retorts, standing back up to lean over Niall, gripping her under her thighs and pulling her to the edge of the counter. Niall automatically wraps her legs around him, ankles linked at the small of his back. Zayn trails a hand to the inside of her left thigh, pad of his thumb pressed into a bruise he'd sucked into the pale skin there hours earlier. Zayn ducks down and kisses the corner of Niall’s mouth, his other hand smoothing the strands of hair that have escaped her bun off of her forehead. "You weren’t complaining at all, actually."

"No, no-" Niall cuts him off with a hand around his wrist. She pushes at his forehead with her other hand. "Not gonna happen. Food first, buddy. Nice try."

Zayn smirks at her then, and she doesn’t have a chance to register the predatory look on his face before he grabs her round the middle and slings her over his shoulder.

Niall shrieks (which she will never admit, she won’t) and laughs as Zayn carries her out of the kitchen. 

"No, Z, I’m huuuungry," she whines, and can’t resist reaching down to land a smack to Zayn’s ass. 

"S'cuse you," he says, and turns his face in to bite at the side of her hip when she reaches down to grab his butt with both hands, getting a good handful of each cheek. 

"I’m not having sex with you," Niall states matter of fact when he throws her (gently) back on the bed they've just climbed out of. She crosses her ankles (and its surprisingly dainty, Zayn thinks, what the fuck) and folds her arms across her chest. "Not gonna happen, dude."

(It does.)

Zayn coaxes her legs open with a gentle hand at her ankle and slides in between the V of her legs, and Niall can feel him hard against her hip as he ducks down to kiss her insistently, licking into her mouth and stroking his tongue across hers, when he pulls away, she's unfolded her arms and wrapped them round his shoulders, pulling him in close. 

"Fucker," she mutters, but her eyes flutter closed when he pushes her (his) sweater up and drops kisses from her navel to the waistband of her (his) boxers, biting lightly at the jut of her hipbone before tucking his finger into the elastic and pulling the material down off her legs.

They fuck lazily, kissing messily; Zayn pushes in, Niall’s heels pressed into the swell of his ass, trying to bring him closer, closer, and when he slips a hand between them to stroke his thumb over her clit, Niall whimpers and comes hard and fast, vision going blurry and toes curling as she does. Zayn follows soon after, face buried in Niall’s neck and biting at her collarbone, groaning as his hips stutter and he comes, pushing into her as he comes down. 

He pulls out and rolls off of her and she follows, pillowing her chin on her hands on his chest as she looks at Zayn. He smiles at her sleepily and reaches up to run his thumb over her bottom lip. 

"Ah, don’t you go to sleep," she warns when she sees his eyes getting heavier. "C'mon, now you owe me a shower and breakfast."

She climbs over Zayn’s body and slides off the bed, walking to the bathroom completely starkers, long hair falling in between her shoulder blades. (She knows Zayn will follow, can feel his eyes on her as she walks, and she adds a little swing to her step before she disappears into the bathroom.)

By the time she gets the water to the temperature she likes and steps in the shower, Zayn’s scuffled his way in after her, his hands gripping her hips and his face pressed into her neck.

“We should call Hazza and Lou,” Niall speaks after a moment, leaning back to rest her head on Zayn’s shoulder. “See if they wanna meet us for breakfast.”

“Already did,” Zayn says, turning in to suck a bruise into the line of Niall’s throat. “Texted Haz a minute ago. Gonna meet us at Becky’s in an hour. Li’s gonna come, too.”

“Good,” Niall mumbles, grabbing Zayn’s hands and pulling his arms around her middle more firmly. “S’why I keep you around.”

“Not because of my pouty lips and smouldery eyes?”

“Pretty sure smouldery’s not a word.”

“Shh,” Zayn responds, and when Niall makes a noise of indignation- “Don’t shh me, you twat!”- he just laughs and leans over so he can slant his mouth over hers. The angle is all wrong and the kiss is awkward, but Niall just sighs happily against Zayn’s mouth and shifts so she’s facing him, hooking an arm around his neck and pulling him down. they’re so close that Niall has to tilt her head almost all the way back to meet Zayn’s kiss, Zayn towering over her and pushed up close the way he knows she loves. he tangles a hand in her hair as he swipes his tongue across her bottom lip and uses his other hand to dance his fingertips idly up her side-“goddammit, Malik,” Niall curses, pushing at his shoulder. “every fucking time, I swear to god. I just want food, I cannot live off of sex alone.”

Zayn laughs and drops a kiss to the tip of Niall’s nose. “Well-“

“Make a joke about your dick and I promise you I will cut it off when you’re sleeping,” Niall warns, tweaking one of Zayn’s nipples. “c’mon, wash my hair for me? it’s all tangled.”

Zayn scoffs, incredulous, at Niall’s switch from threatening to sweet, but reaches down to grab the shampoo. (Of course he does- he’s never been able to say no to her, and she knows it.)

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” he says, tilting her face up with two fingers under her chin, angling her back under the spray of water to get her hair wet before massaging the shampoo in.

“Mmm,” is Niall’s only response, and Zayn’s heart does a stupid little hop-skip-and-a-jump in his ribcage when he looks at her face and sees her eyes closed, content smile on her face as he works his fingers through her hair.

\---

By the time they arrive at Becky’s, Liam is already there, sitting at the end of a table (their table) in the corner.

“Hey, Li,” Niall greets him, leaning over and kissing him on the cheek. “Y’alright?”

“Yeah, I’m good, Ni,” he says, oof’-ing when Niall plops herself in his lap. “Christ, Malik, what have you been feeding this one?”

“Nothing at all, I’m famished,” Niall whines, putting the back of her hand to her forehead and pretending to faint. Her stomach growls, proving her point, and Liam laughs from where he’s got his chin hooked over Niall’s shoulder, arms securely around her waist.

“Y’alright, love?” he whispers, low so only she can hear, and she places her hand over his and squeezes. (It’s her way of saying yes, he knows, and he squeezes back, knocking his temple against her ear.)

The waitress approaches their table then, and since Louis and Harry aren’t there yet (and who knows when they will be, they’re always late) and Niall feels like her stomach is eating her backbone, they go ahead and place their orders.

Louis and Harry arrive right as the waitress is leaving their table, and Louis huffs exaggeratedly as she drops into a chair, turning to pout at Harry as he sits next to her.

“Harry, I’m hungry,” she says, leaning over to smudge her head into his shoulder before reaching up and snatching his beanie off of his head.

“Lou, she’ll be back in like, thirty seconds with their drinks, we can order then.”

“But I’m hungry now,” she says petulantly, tugging the beanie over her hair. “Hey, Ni, we match!”

Niall smiles and pulls at her own gray beanie.

“Well if you hadn’t been so preoccupied when we were trying to leave-“ Harry starts, and Louis turns her attention back to him.

“I’m pretty sure me being preoccupied was very beneficial to you, mister,” she replies, raising an eyebrow. Louis turns to look at Niall again and raises a hand to shield her mouth from Harry before mock whispering- “you’d think he’d be more appreciative of the fact that I like to have his dick in my mouth, but noooo.”

Niall laughs and Zayn rolls his eyes, and Louis cackles (yes, she cackles) when both Harry and Liam turn bright red.

What the rest of them can’t see, though, is Louis’ hand creeping up Harry’s thigh, fingers tapping a teasing rhythm up the inseam of his jeans. He makes a feeble attempt to stop her, long fingers wrapped loosely around her wrist, but she just laughs delightedly and palms his crotch quickly, biting the inside of her cheek when he jumps under her touch and just barely holds back his yelp.

The waitress arrives then with everyone else’s drinks and Lou’s hand is gone as fast as she put it there, leaving Harry shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

They all laugh at Louis’ face when she realizes she hasn’t even looked at the menu (even though they all know it by heart, they’ve been going to Becky’s for years) to decide what she wants.

She finally decides to get whatever Niall ordered (even though they all point out that she won’t be able to finish even half of it. She takes it as a challenge.) before flinging herself back into Harry’s space, her arm slung around his shoulders.

“So, what are you guys up to today?” Louis asks as he prods at Harry’s face, tracing his features before poking at his cheek, where his dimple would be.

“Not sex,” Niall says, deadpan, when Zayn turns and winks at her, and Harry lets out a burst of laughter, head thrown back as he does so.

“Dimple!” Louis very nearly yells, poking at said dimple before dropping a kiss to Harry’s cheek.

“Why are you withholding sex, Nialler?” Louis asks, shifting so her legs are crossed underneath her. she’s balanced precariously in her chair, tilting back on its back legs, and Harry throws an arm around the seatback in caution.

“Because-“

“Because she’s eaten all of my food and didn’t find what was left satisfactory when she woke up this morning,” Zayn answers before Niall can.

“You had a block of moldy cheese and a piece of pizza left over from two weeks ago. And a rotting plum. I do have some standards, know.”

“Of course, babe,” Zayn appeases, and even though Niall grumbles “sod off, Malik, don’t come near me,” she leans in when he does and tilts her chin up slightly, meeting his kiss.

“Why are you two allowed to kiss and we’re not?” Louis grumbles, arms crossed over her chest.

“Because you two kissing leads to you two jumping each other’s bones,” Liam answers easily. 

“Those two can control themselves. Mostly.”

Zayn sticks his tongue out at Louis from across the table and she crosses her eyes at him.

“Careful, Tommo, your face will stick like that.”

“Careful, Tommo, your face will stick like that,” Louis mimics in a voice that sounds nothing like Zayn. “Ooh, food!”

“Halle-fucking-lujah,” Niall mutters when their waitress slides her plate in front of her, piled high with food. “This is honestly the best moment of my life. Better than any orgasm you could ever give me, Malik.”

She seems to realize that she is actually voicing her thoughts then, loud enough for her friends to hear, and has the sense to look a little sheepish, leaning over and kissing Zayn’s now-pouting mouth, whispering (this time low enough that no one other than Zayn can hear her) “obviously I’m kidding, babe, you know nothing compares to what you do to me” in his ear before turning back to her plate.

Louis doesn’t even make it halfway through her food, leaning back in her seat and pressing her hands to her stomach and groaning. “Oh my god.”

Niall’s still happily tucking away into hers, and she leans over to steal a piece of sausage from Zayn’s plate at the same time that she smacks Harry’s hand, defending her own from his not-so-sneaky fingers.

“Don’t do it, Styles,” she warns, glaring at Harry while she snacks on her own score from Zayn’s plate. “Stealing food is rude. Eat your own.”

After they finish eating (or, to put it more accurately, four of them surrender and Niall picks happily off of their plates), they decide to walk down to the park. It’s a pretty fall day, nippy but not too cold yet, and the sun is shining as they walk down the street.

Louis dribbles the football she’d pulled from Harry’s car down the sidewalk as she walks, and Niall runs ahead a bit before turning around and waiting for Louis to pass it to her.

They take off then, running recklessly down the sidewalk (thank god it’s the middle of the week and people are already at work and kids are already at school), screaming and laughing as they all but tackle each other to get to the ball.

“I really don’t know how you two do it,” Liam says from in between Harry and Zayn. Louis and Niall are a couple of blocks ahead of them now, side by side in their matching beanies. “Tornadoes, those two are.”

“They are, aren’t they?” Zayn responds, but he and Harry are wearing matching looks of complete and total adoration as they agree with Liam, shaking their heads and laughing as they watch Niall attempt to run with Louis on her back. “S’good to see Ni smiling again, yeah?”

\---

They spend the rest of the morning in the park, playing a ragtag game of football (Zayn and Harry against a stacked team of Louis, Niall, and Liam) on the empty rec field.

“GOAAAAAAAL!” Louis yells after she sends the ball rocketing past Zayn and into the goal. “3-1 now, right?”

“S’not fair,” Zayn grumbles. “All three of you played footy in high school.”

“We called Li fair and square,” Louis answers. Niall runs over to her then, jumping onto her back and whispering into her ear conspiratorially. Louis nods and turns back to Zayn and Harry. “Okay, okay, fine. Liam, if you would like to, and if you are feeling charitable on this beautiful morning, you may join Hazza and Zayn’s team for the remainder of the game.”

Liam pretends to think about it for a moment before grinning and jogging over to Harry and Zayn, clapping them on their backs. “C’mon then, lads!”

it gets a little better after that- they put Harry in goal, deciding that his long limbs would be the best defense against any scoring attempts (and plus they know that Louis likes to play dirty and is definitely not above using her tits as means to distract Harry, so they just take away the opportunity for any one-on-one competition between them), and Liam and Zayn take on Niall and Louis.

(Niall and Louis don’t need a designated goalie; they can see the boys’ attempts from a mile away and one of them can usually make it back to protect the goal before they can get a shot off.)

“C’mon, Malik,” Niall taunts, dribbling the ball lazily down the field, turning and using her body to protect the ball when Zayn tries to dart in and steal it away from her. "C'mon, I taught you how to steal the ball from someone last time we played. Do what I taught you."

Niall’s so preoccupied with her teasing that she lets her guard down temporarily- Zayn seizes the opportunity and steals the football from her with a quick kick, turning around and running back down the field.

He's looking for Liam when all of a sudden his feet are knocked out from underneath him; he lands on his back, part on the grass and part on a knobby knee.

Niall wraps an arm around his chest from behind him, laughing as she does so.

"Shit, did you just slide-tackle me, Ni?"

"Always keep your opponent in your peripherals, z," is Niall’s answer, spoken low and close to his ear. "You lost sight of me while you were trying to find Liam."

She presses a kiss to his cheek and hops up, helping Zayn stand up and laughing again when she sees that he's still pouting.

"C'mon, I’m sorry," she says, stepping in close and winding her arms around his middle. She smooths a hand across his lower back, where she knows her knee landed and where there will probably be a bruise later, and pushes up on her toes to kiss Zayn’s chin. "Forgive me?"

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Zayn replies, smushing his hand over her face and laughing when she licks his palm. “Gross.”

Niall and Louis end up winning even without Liam (although the boys do score once more before they ultimately admit defeat and decide to call it quits).

Covered in grass stains and dirt, her hair falling out of the bun she’d tied up quickly as they’d gotten more and more competitive, Niall slips her arms around Zayn’s middle from behind and presses in close. She noses at Zayn’s back, right in between his shoulder blades. “You have done well, young padawan,” she tries to say in a faux-deep voice, but bursts out laughing, pressing her forehead into Zayn’s back as she does so.

Zayn turns and loops an arm around Niall’s shoulders, forearm pressed lightly to the back of her neck as he looks down at her.

(Her face is red, from exertion and the chill of the wind, and Zayn can tell she’ll be sunburnt across the bridge of her nose from their time outside. There’s grass in her hair and smudges of dirt across her cheek and down her neck, but her freckles are more prominent across her face now, brought out by the sun, and her eyes are shining bright as she beams up at Zayn. He thinks she’s never looked more beautiful.)

That afternoon, after Louis and Liam head to work and Harry leaves for his English class, Niall and Zayn go back to Zayn’s place. Niall passes out on the couch, her own class having been cancelled, not even ten minutes after they get there, flat on her stomach, head cushioned on her folded arms and her hoodie drifting up, exposing the small of her back.

Zayn can see her other tattoo peeking from under the waist of her jeans (or maybe they’re his, they are a little baggy on her and he wouldn’t put it past her to get his jeans covered in grass stains), dark ink standing out in contrast to the pale skin of the back of her hip.

(This one she meant to get, thought about for months, before grabbing Zayn’s hand one day and walking him into the tattoo shop where he gets all of his work done; it’s three lines from a letter her mum wrote her, the stencil taken from her letter so that the tattoo is written in her handwriting. Niall had cried while she’d gotten it, squeezing Zayn’s fingers tight in one hand and holding the letter in the other, and it was only when Zayn had leaned in to press his lips to her forehead that he had realized that it had been exactly three months since they’d buried her mum on that cold, rainy day in Mullingar.)

\---

When Niall wakes up- four and a half hours later, she discovers, looking at the clock on the wall- she stretches and climbs up from the couch, making her way into the kitchen, where she finds a post-it on the fridge (which is still empty, she knows that, she just goes there out of habit, really).

at the studio for a few hours, xx –z

Niall decides to head down there, pulling on her boots and locking the door behind her before walking down the street. The sun is setting and the temperature has dropped significantly, and she pulls her beanie over her ears and tugs the sleeves of her hoodie down over her fingers.

She calls Franco’s as she walks and orders a pizza, stopping by and picking it up before rounding the corner and letting herself into Zayn’s studio, pushing the heavy door open with her foot.

“Z?” she calls, knowing he probably has his headphones in but also knowing he hates to be snuck up on while he’s painting. She kicks the door closed behind her and pulls up her jeans, baggy on her skinny hips (because yeah, okay, maybe she did take Zayn’s when she was getting dressed this morning. All of hers were dirty.) with one hand as she walks further inside, smiling at Zayn when he glances up from his canvas and sees her.

“Hey, Ni,” he says, pulling his ear buds out and setting his iPod on the countertop next to his easel.

“Hi babe,” she responds, setting the pizza box down next to Zayn’s iPod and stepping into his space, in between him and his canvas, to press up on her tiptoes and kiss him. “Whatcha workin’ on?”

“Ah-ah,” Zayn stops her with his hands on her shoulders. “No looking, you know the rules.”

Niall rolls her eyes but adheres, kissing Zayn once more before slipping out from in between him and his easel hopping up on the counter. She swings her legs and grabs a piece of pizza, watching as Zayn gets back to work, brush moving across the canvas in long, sweeping strokes.

it’s one of her favorite things to do, watch Zayn paint- he becomes so transfixed on the motion of his brush, putting on canvas the colors that he sees in his head, that he doesn’t even realize he’s being watched; sometimes he hums under his breath while he works, and sometimes he’s completely silent, depending on what he’s working on, and Niall loves to see each of these different Zayn’s in motion.

After she’s eaten a few slices of pizza, Niall reaches down into the drawer sitting under the countertop. She pulls out the small baggie of weed she knows is stashed there, and Zayn’s rolling stuff, and scoots back until she can set them down on the counter in between her legs. 

She rolls a joint quickly (she is the best at it, after all, even though Louis will never admit it) and lights up, laughing when the smell invades Zayn’s senses and she sees him perk up and peek over the top of his canvas to see what she’s got.

She holds the joint out towards him and smiles when he comes out from behind his easel to step in between her legs, plucking it from her fingers and holding it to his mouth; when he drops his hand she leans in and presses her mouth to his, coaxing his lips apart with her tongue and allowing the smoke to swirl into her mouth, tangy and pungent and thick, when Zayn exhales, pulling away and swallowing.

“Dirty rotten sneaky thief,” Zayn mutters when she does so, and she winks at him before taking the joint from in between his fingers and taking a quick hit, keeping her mouth closed as she leans back in to press her lips to his. Zayn catches on quickly and opens his mouth under hers, reaching out to grip her hips and pull her to the edge of the counter. She holds it in as long as she can, until Zayn reaches up to cup her neck, making a noise of discontent in the back of his throat, and Niall finally lets it go, breathing the smoke into Zayn’s mouth.

“Better?” she asks when she pulls away, laughing when Zayn replies ‘much, yeah’, and leans back in to kiss him again, slow and lazy. Niall pulls away after a moment with a nipping kiss to Zayn’s bottom lip, and setting the joint in the ash tray Zayn keeps on the counter for his cigarettes, pushes at his shoulders lightly to get him to step back so that she can hop off the counter.

“Ni-?” Zayn starts, a little confused, but then Niall hooks her fingers into his belt loops and drops to her knees in front of him and oh, yeah, okay.

When they leave the studio, Niall’s got a blue streak of paint through one of her strands of hair, a smudge of yellow high on her cheekbone, and a smear of dark red just under the line of her jaw.

"C'mere," Zayn murmurs, tugging on Niall’s hand and pulling her back to him. He reaches out and wipes the paint from her cheek. "Sorry."

"Nah, no worries," she smiles at him. Her voice is a little bit wrecked, deeper and a little hoarse now, on top of the usual raspy husk from smoking, and Zayn has to kiss her again, leaning over to do so and tasting himself in her kiss.

He pulls the blue streak between his thumb and forefinger when he pulls away, tugging lightly. 

"This looks kinda cool."

"Right?" Niall agrees, crossing her eyes in an attempt to look at the strand. "Maybe I’ll keep it. Have Lou dye this part for me next time we're over there. I need to have her touch up my roots anyway."

“I like the brown,” Zayn says honestly, dropping a kiss to the tip of Niall’s nose, and then to the bow of her lip, before intertwining their fingers and starting back down the road. “But I like the blonde, too, so.”

(He knows she’ll decide to do whatever she wants to her hair, regardless of his opinion, because since when does Niall need her boyfriend’s approval regarding her hair color? But she smiles softly and squeezes his hand, and Zayn knows that that’s her way of saying thank you.)

It’s completely dark now, and Niall can see her breath coming out in puffs in front of her. “What do you wanna do tonight?” she asks, bouncing a little on each step in an attempt to warm up, and rolling her eyes when Zayn waggles his eyebrows at her. “Already? I just sucked you off, like, twenty minutes ago.“

“What can I say, babe?” Zayn cheeks, laughing when Niall mutters ‘horny bastard’ under her breath. He drops her hand in favor of wrapping his arm around her shoulders, pulling her in close. “I mean, I’m pretty sure you’re the one that pulled my pants down.”

“You know how I get when I’m high,” is all Niall can come up with after a second, and Zayn just laughs, turning his face to press a kiss to her temple.

When they get back up to Zayn’s flat, Harry and Louis are on the couch.

(Well, Harry is on the couch. Louis is on Harry.)

“Oi!” Niall says, walking into the living room and sitting on Harry’s shins, prodding at Louis’ side. “Was plannin’ on making out with my boyfriend on this couch.”

“Y’snooze, y’lose,” Louis mumbles against Harry’s mouth, and Niall groans when she sees Harry’s hand slip up the front of Louis’ shirt, both of them content to just pretend Niall isn’t sitting right there.

“Fucking exhibitionists,” Niall mutters, standing when Zayn comes into the living room and sits on the overstuffed chair in the corner, situating herself on his lap instead.

“Are we just gonna sit here and watch?” he asks, his arms snug around her middle and his chin hooked over her shoulder.

“Do you have any other suggestions?” Niall shrugs her shoulders. “Nothing we haven’t seen before, anyway.”

“How’d you two even get in?” Zayn asks and Louis extracts herself from Harry long enough to sit up, propping herself up with a hand on his chest, to pull a bobby pin from her hair and show it to Zayn.

“Picked your lock,” she says with a wink, and then turns back to Harry, reaching down to cup his jaw and stroke her thumb across his plump bottom lip. “God, you’re pretty.”

Harry just laughs and raises a hand to the back of her neck to pull her back down to him- Louis goes willingly, of course, slanting her mouth over Harry’s and kissing him like she hasn’t seen him in months. (They’re always like that, really- two hours is two months in their time, and Harry has been at class all afternoon.)

“Where’s Li?” Niall asks, and Louis groans before pulling herself up once more, fastening a glare in Niall’s direction at the interruption.

“He-“ Just then, there’s a knock on the door (because Liam is the only one who still knocks, bless him), and Louis says “speak of the devil- well, angel. Is that a thing? Speak of the angel? Whatever.” and leans back down to kiss Harry some more.

“Come in,” Zayn yells, slipping a hand under the hem of Niall’s sweatshirt just because.

“Hey, guys,” Liam calls when he opens the door, toeing off his shoes and making his way into the living room. He falters briefly when he sees Louis and Harry taking up the expanse of the couch, but rolls his eyes and sits on the floor, leaning against the overstuffed chair Niall and Zayn are occupying. Liam pats Zayn’s foot, craning his neck to turn and look up at them. “Y’alright?”

“Yeah, Li, good,” Zayn answers. “How was work?”

“Alright,” Liam says, and nods his head towards the tangle of limbs that is HarryandLouis. “How long have they been going at it?”

“Dunno, we just got back,” Niall answers. “They were here when we got here.”

“But you just changed the lock.“

“Yeah, Lou picked it. really makes me feel safe, if Louis can manage to pick it with a bobby pin-“

“Hey!” Louis calls out, affronted, but it doesn’t really come off as such since her face is still pretty much glued to Harry’s. “Sheisty move, by the way, changing the locks on us. it was just one time.”

“Finding you two fucking in my bed once was one time too many. Had to burn the sheets,” Zayn responds, chucking a pillow across the room at them. “Oi, come up for air, would you?”

Louis flips them the bird before grinding down once very purposefully against Harry, smirking when he groans, and leaning back to pull him up into a sitting position. She turns in his arms and situates herself between his long legs, back pressed to his chest and head resting on his shoulder.

“Lou, you’re a tease,” Niall says, laughing. “Poor Haz.”

“Thank you!” Harry speaks, and yelps when Louis pinches the inside of his thigh. He turns down to nose at the skin behind her ear and drops his voice until he’s whispering. (And they don’t want to know what he says, they don’t, because Louis is actually blushing and that only happens like three times a year.)

They end up watching a movie (not Grease, no matter how loud Louis gets in her attempt to change their minds) and making popcorn when Liam pulls a couple of bags of Orville Redenbacher’s from his jacket pocket.

“You’re a saint, Liam James Payne, that’s what you are,” Niall says, climbing from Zayn’s lap and pulling the popcorn from Liam’s hand to go pop it.

“Just remembered that Zayn said you ate all of his food,” Liam calls after her, and since it’s Liam she decides to let it go.

When she gets back, Harry and Louis have shifted to make room for Liam on the couch, and Louis has stretched out to put her head in Liam’s lap.

“Why do I get your smelly feet?” Harry asks, wrinkling his nose when Louis rests her feet in his lap.

“Because I’d never do that to Liam,” Louis answers simply, reaching up to pat Liam’s cheek.

Niall hands them their popcorn, setting the bowl on Louis’ stomach, before flipping the light switch off and making her way back over to Zayn. She sits down, shifting so her butt is in between his thigh and the arm of the chair, her legs thrown over his lap and head resting on his shoulder. He opens his mouth when she raises her hand to feed him a piece of popcorn from their bowl and bites the tip of her finger when she pops it into his mouth.

“Ow,” she says, flicking him on the nose. “You did that on purpose.”

“Did not,” Zayn insists, grabbing her wrist loosely to prevent her from flicking him again.

Instead, she uses her other hand to stuff a piece of popcorn down the front of his shirt, giggling when he squirms as he tries to fish it out.

“Hey, shut your faces,” Louis commands around a mouthful of popcorn. “Some of us are trying to watch a movie like adults.”

By the time the credits are rolling across the screen, Louis is asleep and drooling on Liam’s thigh. Harry snaps a picture for proof, smiling fondly at her sleeping face before extracting himself from under her legs. He stands and stretches quickly before leaning down to gather Louis up in his arms, saying quiet goodbyes to Niall and Zayn and nodding when Liam says he’ll help him out the door.

“Night, guys,” Liam says, and Niall reaches out, summoning him to her so she can hug his neck.

“Love you, Li,” she murmurs, half-asleep herself. “Now go make sure Harry doesn’t send himself and Lou to the hospital by falling down the stairs.”

Liam laughs and runs a quick hand through Zayn’s hair before following harry outside.

“C’mon, Nialler,” Zayn says, sliding out from under Niall’s legs and standing up. He steps out into the hallway to lock the door before coming back into the living room and grabbing Niall’s hands, pulling her up til she’s standing. “Let’s go to bed.”

Niall nods through a yawn and allows Zayn to lead her down the hall to his room, flopping onto the bed as soon as she reaches it. She makes a noise of discontent when Zayn tries to pull her back up, but sits up eventually and pulls her hoodie over her head. She yawns as she pushes her jeans down her legs and then slides under the covers, sighing happily as she gets comfy.

“Hey, Z,” she says, turning onto her back and opening her arms, watching him expectantly.

Zayn rolls his eyes, but smiles and crawls onto the bed, sliding on top of Niall and settling in between her legs as she wraps her arms around him. “I love you.”

“Yeah, babe,” Zayn responds, ducking down to kiss her quickly. “I love you, too.”

“I know the past year hasn’t been easy,” Niall starts after a moment, and her voices shakes, her fingers trembling slightly as she combs them through the hair falling over his forehead. 

“Ni,” Zayn cuts her off with a quick peck. “You know I’m always here, yeah? No matter what.”

“Yeah, I know,” Niall sighs, and then pats at Zayn’s cheek lightly as she yawns. “Let’s go to bed, yeah? Got another day to conquer tomorrow, after all.”


End file.
